Selected as a must-read by the curators of the Next Big Idea Book Club, including Daniel Pink, Susan Cain, Malcolm Gladwell, and Adam Grant

“In this illuminating guide, Jeff Karp illustrates how we can break free from the routines that limit our thinking. LIT is an essential toolkit for converting intentions into actions that matter.” —Daniel H. Pink, #1 New York Times bestselling author

“Don’t we all want to tap our innermost talents of creativity, the full power of our good brains?. . . LIT is a blueprint for a richer, deeper life." —Diana Nyad

“Jeff Karp’s much-needed book provides a spark and helps us light ourselves up from within — while lighting up the world around us, bringing joy and creativity to all aspects of our lives.” —Arianna Huffington

Radically simple experimental tools to help anyone tap into a high-energy brain state to fire up innovative potential and shape their lives with intention—by the founder of a Harvard biomedical engineering innovation lab.

In an age of convenience and information overload, it’s easy to go through the motions, pressured, distracted, and seeking instant gratification rather than harnessing our potential for meaningful and impactful lives. In LIT, Jeff Karp, Ph.D., professor at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and biotech innovator, helps us look to nature as a vital source of humankind’s best wisdom, most inspired action, and greatest good. Diagnosed with learning differences at a young age, he persisted through nearly insurmountable struggles with support from his mom in developing ways to achieve hyper-awareness and maximize decisions based on his curiosity, passion, creativity, and connection to nature. He evolved these approaches into LIT (Life Ignition Tools) —and road-tested these tools daily in his own personal life and with his lab team to innovate medical discoveries inspired by the “problem solving” process they find throughout the natural world.

LIT teaches us to:

turn inward and connect with what is truly important to usturn outward to act on that, connecting with others and different ways of knowingquestion assumptions—break out of habitual thinking and other patterns to discover what really serves you bestexplore, experiment, and discover fresh approaches to old challenges

Dr. Karp also shares insights from some of the world’s most accomplished people, including Nobel Prize winners, the founder of an Indigenous wellness center, a visionary photographer, a social justice activist, a five-time US memory champion, an Olympic medalist, and a neurosurgeon who founded a center for compassion, as well as professors, inventors, entrepreneurs, CEOs, and members of his laboratory.

Using Dr. Karp’s principles, anyone can redirect their lives with energy, focus, creativity, motivation, intention, and impact. Learning to be lit is the ultimate renewable energy and is accessible to everyone, anytime, wherever you are.

My eight-year-old son is the only boy in his class who doesn''t have a Gameboy. I don''t want him to be ostracized for not having one, but I worry that it''s addictive. What do you think?Our two sons are eleven and fourteen, and they are fiercely competitive. The tension around our house is awful. How can we help them get along better?We''ve worked very hard to keep our ten-year-old son in touch with his feelings. Sometimes it seems as if we''ve put him at a disadvantage, surrounded by tougher boys who can be pretty cruel with teasing. How can we help him protect himself when other boys start to tease?With his bestselling book Raising Cain, Michael Thompson, Ph.D., at last broke the silence surrounding the emotional life of boys and spearheaded an important national debate. His warmth and humor quickly made him a popular and respected international speaker and consultant. Now he directs his authority, insight, and eloquence to answering your questions about raising a son. With candid questions and thoughtful, detailed responses, Speaking of Boys covers hot-button topics such as peer pressure, ADHD/ADD, and body image as well as traditional issues such as friendship, divorce, and college and career development. This perceptive, informative, and passionate book will leave you not only with useful, practical advice but also with the comforting knowledge that other parents share the same concerns you do when it comes to raising our boys into well-adjusted, responsible men.From the Trade Paperback edition.

A "fascinating and terrifying" memoir of one woman's extraordinary effort to save her husband's life (Scientific American) - and the discovery of a forgotten cure that has the potential to save millions more.Epidemiologist Steffanie Strathdee and her husband, psychologist Tom Patterson, were vacationing in Egypt when Tom came down with a stomach bug. What at first seemed like a case of food poisoning quickly turned critical, and by the time Tom had been transferred via emergency medevac to the world-class medical center at UC San Diego, where both he and Steffanie worked, blood work revealed why modern medicine was failing: Tom was fighting one of the most dangerous, antibiotic-resistant bacteria in the world.Frantic, Steffanie combed through research old and new and came across phage therapy: the idea that the right virus, aka "the perfect predator," can kill even the most lethal bacteria. Phage treatment had fallen out of favor almost 100 years ago, after antibiotic use went mainstream. Now, with time running out, Steffanie appealed to phage researchers all over the world for help. She found allies at the FDA, researchers from Texas A&M, and a clandestine Navy biomedical center - and together they resurrected a forgotten cure.A nail-biting medical mystery, The Perfect Predator is a story of love and survival against all odds, and the (re)discovery of a powerful new weapon in the global superbug crisis.

From the New York Times bestselling co-author of Raising Cain, It’s a Boy! is the first major parenting book to chart every stage of a boy’s life. This upbeat, authoritative, and reassuring guide–written by psychologist Michael Thompson, Ph.D., a leading international expert on boys’ development, and journalist Teresa H. Barker–shows how a boy’s inner life progresses through infancy, childhood, and adolescence. What do boys actually need? How exactly does a healthy boy look and act? It’s a Boy! has the answers, providing expert advice on the developmental, psychological, social, and academic life of boys from infancy through the teen years. Exploring the many ways in which boys strive for masculinity and attempt to define themselves, Dr. Thompson identifies the key developmental transitions that mark a boy’s psychological growth and emotional health, and the challenges both boys and parents face at each age.• Expecting a Boy: how our deeply held hopes, fears, and family histories shape our expectations of boys and our parenting techniques• Baby Boys (birth to 18 months): falling in love with your son, healthy attachment, trust, and temperament• Toddler Years (18 months to 3 years): boys on the go, bold steps, blankies, budding language, and rambunctious physicality• Powerful Little Boys (ages 3 and 4): superhero ambitions, penis play and potty talk, learning to manage the force of his anger, and celebrating the power of the boy group• Starting School (ages 5 through 7): developmental cues for school readiness, transitional challenges, girl cooties and boys-only play, tough talk, tender hearts, and first friends• Boys on a Mission (ages 8 through 10): striving for mastery in sports, screen games, and boy society, organizing the boy brain for school success, and glaring academic gender gaps• The Preteen (ages 11 through 13): puberty, posturing and popularity, the culture of cruelty, hidden sensitivity, and stoic silence in the middle school years• Early High School (ages 14 and 15): the secret life of boys, powerful peer groups, sexuality, school strategies, the shift away from Mom (she knows too much), and yearning for Dad’s respect and attention• On the Brink of Manhood (ages 16 through 18): the quest for independence, sex, love, driving, drinking, and other choices and challenges of lifePractical, insightful, wonderfully engaging, and filled with instructive true stories any parent of a son will recognize, It’s a Boy! is the definitive guide to raising boys in today’s world, revealing with humor, compassion, and joy all the infinite varieties of boys and the deep and profound ways in which we love them.From the Hardcover edition.

Independence follows the journey of a young woman named Sonora Parish in the late 1800s, as she struggles to find a new life for herself after being disgraced by her fathers criminal activity. When her fathers sins find her, she disappears to Wyoming, finding a job as a housekeeper on a ranch named Independence. Her journey takes her through love and enduring friendship, heartache and betrayal, and a fight for survival. Throughout, Sonora must decide if her past will define her, or if she will fight to keep the life she has built for herself at Independence.

Selected as a must-read by the curators of the Next Big Idea Book Club, including Daniel Pink, Susan Cain, Malcolm Gladwell, and Adam Grant

“In this illuminating guide, Jeff Karp illustrates how we can break free from the routines that limit our thinking. LIT is an essential toolkit for converting intentions into actions that matter.” —Daniel H. Pink, #1 New York Times bestselling author

“Don’t we all want to tap our innermost talents of creativity, the full power of our good brains?. . . LIT is a blueprint for a richer, deeper life." —Diana Nyad

“Jeff Karp’s much-needed book provides a spark and helps us light ourselves up from within — while lighting up the world around us, bringing joy and creativity to all aspects of our lives.” —Arianna Huffington

Radically simple experimental tools to help anyone tap into a high-energy brain state to fire up innovative potential and shape their lives with intention—by the founder of a Harvard biomedical engineering innovation lab.

In an age of convenience and information overload, it’s easy to go through the motions, pressured, distracted, and seeking instant gratification rather than harnessing our potential for meaningful and impactful lives. In LIT, Jeff Karp, Ph.D., professor at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and biotech innovator, helps us look to nature as a vital source of humankind’s best wisdom, most inspired action, and greatest good. Diagnosed with learning differences at a young age, he persisted through nearly insurmountable struggles with support from his mom in developing ways to achieve hyper-awareness and maximize decisions based on his curiosity, passion, creativity, and connection to nature. He evolved these approaches into LIT (Life Ignition Tools) —and road-tested these tools daily in his own personal life and with his lab team to innovate medical discoveries inspired by the “problem solving” process they find throughout the natural world.

LIT teaches us to:

turn inward and connect with what is truly important to usturn outward to act on that, connecting with others and different ways of knowingquestion assumptions—break out of habitual thinking and other patterns to discover what really serves you bestexplore, experiment, and discover fresh approaches to old challenges

Dr. Karp also shares insights from some of the world’s most accomplished people, including Nobel Prize winners, the founder of an Indigenous wellness center, a visionary photographer, a social justice activist, a five-time US memory champion, an Olympic medalist, and a neurosurgeon who founded a center for compassion, as well as professors, inventors, entrepreneurs, CEOs, and members of his laboratory.

Using Dr. Karp’s principles, anyone can redirect their lives with energy, focus, creativity, motivation, intention, and impact. Learning to be lit is the ultimate renewable energy and is accessible to everyone, anytime, wherever you are.

My eight-year-old son is the only boy in his class who doesn''t have a Gameboy. I don''t want him to be ostracized for not having one, but I worry that it''s addictive. What do you think?Our two sons are eleven and fourteen, and they are fiercely competitive. The tension around our house is awful. How can we help them get along better?We''ve worked very hard to keep our ten-year-old son in touch with his feelings. Sometimes it seems as if we''ve put him at a disadvantage, surrounded by tougher boys who can be pretty cruel with teasing. How can we help him protect himself when other boys start to tease?With his bestselling book Raising Cain, Michael Thompson, Ph.D., at last broke the silence surrounding the emotional life of boys and spearheaded an important national debate. His warmth and humor quickly made him a popular and respected international speaker and consultant. Now he directs his authority, insight, and eloquence to answering your questions about raising a son. With candid questions and thoughtful, detailed responses, Speaking of Boys covers hot-button topics such as peer pressure, ADHD/ADD, and body image as well as traditional issues such as friendship, divorce, and college and career development. This perceptive, informative, and passionate book will leave you not only with useful, practical advice but also with the comforting knowledge that other parents share the same concerns you do when it comes to raising our boys into well-adjusted, responsible men.From the Trade Paperback edition.

A "fascinating and terrifying" memoir of one woman's extraordinary effort to save her husband's life (Scientific American) - and the discovery of a forgotten cure that has the potential to save millions more.Epidemiologist Steffanie Strathdee and her husband, psychologist Tom Patterson, were vacationing in Egypt when Tom came down with a stomach bug. What at first seemed like a case of food poisoning quickly turned critical, and by the time Tom had been transferred via emergency medevac to the world-class medical center at UC San Diego, where both he and Steffanie worked, blood work revealed why modern medicine was failing: Tom was fighting one of the most dangerous, antibiotic-resistant bacteria in the world.Frantic, Steffanie combed through research old and new and came across phage therapy: the idea that the right virus, aka "the perfect predator," can kill even the most lethal bacteria. Phage treatment had fallen out of favor almost 100 years ago, after antibiotic use went mainstream. Now, with time running out, Steffanie appealed to phage researchers all over the world for help. She found allies at the FDA, researchers from Texas A&M, and a clandestine Navy biomedical center - and together they resurrected a forgotten cure.A nail-biting medical mystery, The Perfect Predator is a story of love and survival against all odds, and the (re)discovery of a powerful new weapon in the global superbug crisis.

From the New York Times bestselling co-author of Raising Cain, It’s a Boy! is the first major parenting book to chart every stage of a boy’s life. This upbeat, authoritative, and reassuring guide–written by psychologist Michael Thompson, Ph.D., a leading international expert on boys’ development, and journalist Teresa H. Barker–shows how a boy’s inner life progresses through infancy, childhood, and adolescence. What do boys actually need? How exactly does a healthy boy look and act? It’s a Boy! has the answers, providing expert advice on the developmental, psychological, social, and academic life of boys from infancy through the teen years. Exploring the many ways in which boys strive for masculinity and attempt to define themselves, Dr. Thompson identifies the key developmental transitions that mark a boy’s psychological growth and emotional health, and the challenges both boys and parents face at each age.• Expecting a Boy: how our deeply held hopes, fears, and family histories shape our expectations of boys and our parenting techniques• Baby Boys (birth to 18 months): falling in love with your son, healthy attachment, trust, and temperament• Toddler Years (18 months to 3 years): boys on the go, bold steps, blankies, budding language, and rambunctious physicality• Powerful Little Boys (ages 3 and 4): superhero ambitions, penis play and potty talk, learning to manage the force of his anger, and celebrating the power of the boy group• Starting School (ages 5 through 7): developmental cues for school readiness, transitional challenges, girl cooties and boys-only play, tough talk, tender hearts, and first friends• Boys on a Mission (ages 8 through 10): striving for mastery in sports, screen games, and boy society, organizing the boy brain for school success, and glaring academic gender gaps• The Preteen (ages 11 through 13): puberty, posturing and popularity, the culture of cruelty, hidden sensitivity, and stoic silence in the middle school years• Early High School (ages 14 and 15): the secret life of boys, powerful peer groups, sexuality, school strategies, the shift away from Mom (she knows too much), and yearning for Dad’s respect and attention• On the Brink of Manhood (ages 16 through 18): the quest for independence, sex, love, driving, drinking, and other choices and challenges of lifePractical, insightful, wonderfully engaging, and filled with instructive true stories any parent of a son will recognize, It’s a Boy! is the definitive guide to raising boys in today’s world, revealing with humor, compassion, and joy all the infinite varieties of boys and the deep and profound ways in which we love them.From the Hardcover edition.

Independence follows the journey of a young woman named Sonora Parish in the late 1800s, as she struggles to find a new life for herself after being disgraced by her fathers criminal activity. When her fathers sins find her, she disappears to Wyoming, finding a job as a housekeeper on a ranch named Independence. Her journey takes her through love and enduring friendship, heartache and betrayal, and a fight for survival. Throughout, Sonora must decide if her past will define her, or if she will fight to keep the life she has built for herself at Independence.