Books by Jeffrey Kluger
Splendid Solution: Jonas Salk and the Conquest of Polio
The story of the polio vaccine and its enterprising creator, published to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of the first national vaccination program, discusses Salk's childhood during one of polio's worst epidemics and his education during the presidency of an afflicted FDR, describing how politics and a discrediting rival researcher nearly prevented the vaccine's development. 75,000 first printing.
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Splendid Solution: Jonas Salk and the Conquest of Polio
The compelling true story of Dr. Jonas Salk's quest to develop a vaccine for polio.
In 1916, the United States was hit with one of the worst polio epidemics in history. The disease was a terrifying enigma: striking out of nowhere, it afflicted tens of thousands of children and left them—literally overnight—paralyzed. Others it simply killed. At the same time, a child named Jonas Salk was born....
When Franklin Delano Roosevelt was diagnosed with polio shortly before assuming the Presidency, Salk was given an impetus to study this deadly illness. After assisting in the creation of an influenza vaccine, Salk took up the challenge. His progress in combating the virus was hindered by the politics of medicine and by a rival researcher determined to discredit his proposed solution. But Salk's perseverance made history—and for close to seventy years his vaccine has saved countless lives, bringing humanity close to eradicating polio throughout the world.
Splendid Solution chronicles Dr. Salk's race against time to achieve an unparalleled breakthrough that made him a cultural hero and icon of modern medicine.
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Nacky Patcher & the Curse of the Dry-Land Boats
What Nacky Patcher and Teedie Flinn discover in the owl light and blackberry water of Yole Lake causes them to suspect they are losing their wits. Polished wood as far as the eye can see—an entire ship comes unbuttoned! Yet they see something else, too, something far more important: a way out from the curse that has burdened the poor folks of Yole for generations. But first, they will need the villagers to do something they haven’t done in a long time: work as a team.
Jeffrey Kluger, co-author of the blockbuster book-turned-film Apollo 13, delivers one of the finest, quirkiest, and most emotionally satisfying reads of the year. As they rise to the challenge of something greater than themselves, this cast of characters will capture readers’ hearts and imaginations.
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Freedom Stone
Lillie's papa believed in freedom-for him, his family, and all the slaves on the Greenfog plantation. So when the Confederate Army promised freedom to the family of every slave who served in the Civil War-whether they came home or not-Lillie's papa decided he had to take the chance.
But when Lillie's family got the news that her papa was killed, they weren't freed. The army claimed that Lillie's papa was a thief. Lillie knew that couldn't be true! Even worse, the master started making plans to sell off Lillie's little brother, Plato. With the help of an old slave, Bett, who bakes bread that bends time, Lillie travels to the battle during which her father died to find out the true story. Using a little magic of her own, Lillie rights a few wrongs and buys her family their freedom. This is a beautiful tale filled with magic and hope and love.
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Apollo 13
by Jeffrey Kluger, James Lovell
NATIONAL BESTSELLER. Astronaut Jim Lovell and coauthor Jeffrey Kluger’s harrowing account of the Apollo 13 disaster. Serving as the basis for Ron Howard’s blockbuster Apollo 13, the book reveals true details not shown in the movie. Thrilling and evocative, you feel as though you’re alongside Lovell in the lunar module.
Written with all the color and drama of the best fiction, Apollo 13 tells the full story of the moon shot that almost ended in catastrophe. Minutes after a mid-flight explosion, the three astronauts are forced to abandon the main ship for the lunar module, a tiny craft designed to keep two men alive for just two days.?
As the hours tick away, the narrative shifts from the crippled spacecraft to Mission Control, from engineers searching desperately for a way to fix the ship to Lovell's wife and children praying for his safe return. The entire nation watches as one crisis after another is met and overcome. By the time the ship splashes down in the Pacific, we understand why the heroic effort to rescue Lovell and his crew is considered by many to be NASA's finest hour.?
Inspiring and astonishing, the story of Apollo 13 is a timeless tribute to the enduring American spirit and sparkling individual heroism.
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Gemini: Stepping Stone to the Moon, the Untold Story
From the bestselling author of Apollo 13 comes the thrilling untold story of the pioneering Gemini program that was instrumental in getting Americans on the moon.
Without Gemini, there would be no Apollo.
After we first launched Americans into space but before we touched down on the moon’s surface, there was the Gemini program. It was no easy jump from manned missions in low-Earth orbit to a successful moon landing, and the ten-flight, twenty-month celestial story of the Gemini program is an extraordinary one. There was unavoidable darkness in the program―the deaths and near-deaths that defined it, and the blood feud with the Soviet Union that animated it.
But there were undeniable and previously inconceivable successes. With a war raging in Vietnam and lawmakers calling for cuts on NASA’s budget, the success of the Gemini program―or the space program in general―was never guaranteed. Yet against all odds, the remarkable scientists and astronauts behind the project persevered, and their efforts paid off. Later, with the knowledge gained from the Gemini flights, NASA would launch the legendary Apollo program.
Told with Jeffrey Kluger’s signature cinematic storytelling and in-depth research and interviews, Gemini is an edge-of-your-seat narrative chronicling the history of the least appreciated―and most groundbreaking―space program in American history. Finally, Gemini’s story will be told, and finally, we’ll learn the truth of how we landed on the moon.
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$32.00
Simplexity: Why Simple Things Become Complex (and How Complex Things Can Be Made Simple)
Why are the instruction manuals for cell phones incomprehensible?
Why is a truck driver's job as hard as a CEO's?
How can 10 percent of every medical dollar cure 90 percent of the world's disease?
Why do bad teams win so many games?
Complexity, as any scientist will tell you, is a slippery idea. Things that seem complicated can be astoundingly simple; things that seem simple can be dizzyingly complex. A houseplant may be more intricate than a manufacturing plant. A colony of garden ants may be more complicated than a community of people. A sentence may be richer than a book, a couplet more complicated than a song.
These and other paradoxes are driving a whole new science--simplexity -- that is redefining how we look at the world and using that new view to improve our lives in fields as diverse as economics, biology, cosmology, chemistry, psychology, politics, child development, the arts, and more. Seen through the lens of this surprising new science, the world becomes a delicate place filled with predictable patterns--patterns we often fail to see as we're time and again fooled by our instincts, by our fear, by the size of things, and even by their beauty.
In Simplexity, Time senior writer Jeffrey Kluger shows how a drinking straw can save thousands of lives; how a million cars can be on the streets but just a few hundred of them can lead to gridlock; how investors behave like atoms; how arithmetic governs abstract art and physics drives jazz; why swatting a TV indeed makes it work better. As simplexity moves from the research lab into popular consciousness it will challenge our models for modern living. Jeffrey Kluger adeptly translates newly evolving theory into a delightful theory of everything that will have you rethinking the rules of business, family, art -- your world.
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The Narcissist Next Door: Understanding the Monster in Your Family, in Your Office, in Your Bed - In Your World
Title: The Narcissist Next Door( Understanding the Monster in Your Family in Your Office in Your Bed - In Your World) Binding: Hardcover Author: JeffreyKluger Publisher: RiverheadBooks
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The Sibling Effect: What the Bonds Among Brothers and Sisters Reveal About Us
A provocative and surprising exploration of the longest sustained relationships we have in life—those we have with our siblings.
Nobody affects us as deeply as our brothers and sisters. Our siblings are our collaborators and co-conspirators, our role models and cautionary tales. They teach us how to resolve conflicts and how not to, how to conduct friendships and when to walk away. Our siblings are the only people we know who truly qualify as partners for life.
In this perceptive and groundbreaking book, Jeffrey Kluger explores the complex world of siblings in equal parts science, psychology, sociology, and memoir. Based on cutting-edge research, he examines birth order, twins, genetic encoding of behavioral traits, emotional disorders and their effects on sibling relationships, and much more. With his signature insight and humor, Kluger takes science’s provocative new ideas about the subject and transforms them into smart, accessible insights that will help everyone understand the importance of siblings in our lives.
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Apollo 8: The Thrilling Story of the First Mission to the Moon
The untold story of the historic voyage to the moon that closed out one of our darkest years with a nearly unimaginable triumph
In August 1968, NASA made a bold decision: in just sixteen weeks, the United States would launch humankind’s first flight to the moon. Only the year before, three astronauts had burned to death in their spacecraft, and since then the Apollo program had suffered one setback after another. Meanwhile, the Russians were winning the space race, the Cold War was getting hotter by the month, and President Kennedy’s promise to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade seemed sure to be broken. But when Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders were summoned to a secret meeting and told of the dangerous mission, they instantly signed on.
Written with all the color and verve of the best narrative non-fiction, Apollo 8 takes us from Mission Control to the astronaut’s homes, from the test labs to the launch pad. The race to prepare an untested rocket for an unprecedented journey paves the way for the hair-raising trip to the moon. Then, on Christmas Eve, a nation that has suffered a horrendous year of assassinations and war is heartened by an inspiring message from the trio of astronauts in lunar orbit. And when the mission is over―after the first view of the far side of the moon, the first earth-rise, and the first re-entry through the earth’s atmosphere following a flight to deep space―the impossible dream of walking on the moon suddenly seems within reach.
The full story of Apollo 8 has never been told, and only Jeffrey Kluger―Jim Lovell’s co-author on their bestselling book about Apollo 13―can do it justice. Here is the tale of a mission that was both a calculated risk and a wild crapshoot, a stirring account of how three American heroes forever changed our view of the home planet.
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Apollo 8: The Thrilling Story of the First Mission to the Moon
The untold story of the historic voyage to the moon that closed out one of our darkest years with a nearly unimaginable triumph.
In August 1968, NASA made a bold decision: in just sixteen weeks, the United States would launch humankind’s first flight to the moon. Only the year before, three astronauts had burned to death in their spacecraft, and since then the Apollo program had suffered one setback after another. Meanwhile, the Russians were winning the space race, the Cold War was getting hotter by the month, and President Kennedy’s promise to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade seemed sure to be broken. But when Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders were summoned to a secret meeting and told of the dangerous mission, they instantly signed on.
Written with all the color and verve of the best narrative non-fiction, Apollo 8 takes us from Mission Control to the astronaut’s homes, from the test labs to the launch pad. The race to prepare an untested rocket for an unprecedented journey paves the way for the hair-raising trip to the moon. Then, on Christmas Eve, a nation that has suffered a horrendous year of assassinations and war is heartened by an inspiring message from the trio of astronauts in lunar orbit. And when the mission is over―after the first view of the far side of the moon, the first earth-rise, and the first re-entry through the earth’s atmosphere following a flight to deep space―the impossible dream of walking on the moon suddenly seems within reach.
The full story of Apollo 8 has never been told, and only Jeffrey Kluger―Jim Lovell’s co-author on their bestselling book about Apollo 13―can do it justice. Here is the tale of a mission that was both a calculated risk and a wild crapshoot, a stirring account of how three American heroes forever changed our view of the home planet.
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Disaster Strikes!: The Most Dangerous Space Missions of All Time
Twelve thrilling and terrifying space-mission failures, told by the bestselling author of Apollo 13!
There are so many amazing, daring, and exciting missions to outer space that have succeeded. But for every success, there are mistakes, surprises, and flat-out failures that happen along the way. In this collection, bestselling author and award-winning journalist Jeffrey Kluger recounts twelve such disasters, telling the stories of the astronauts and the cosmonauts, the trials and the errors, the missions and the misses.
With stories of missions run by both Americans and Russians during the height of the space race, complete with photos of the people and machines behind them, this book delves into the mishaps and the tragedies, small and large, that led humankind to the moon and beyond.
Praise for Disaster Strikes!:
* "A thrill ride punctuated with spectacular failures--but also spectacular successes." --Kirkus Reviews, starred review
* "The [is] text versatile, efficiently functioning as a collection of short reads or a balanced, book-length narrative . . . Always fascinating, at times unsettling, and highly recommended for elementary and middle school collections." --SLJ, starred review
"Each compelling episode is crafted as a self-standing adventure, with an opening hook and a satisfying close, making this an excellent source for readalouds for middle-school classes as well as a pleasure for independent readers." --BCCB
"Kluger manages to combine suspenseful storytelling with scientific writing, showcasing the successes of the programs alongside the failures that ended in death or near misses for astronauts. Even students who claim that they don’t like to read will find these 'you-are-there' moments totally engaging." --SLC
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To the Moon! The True Story of the American Heroes on the Apollo 8 Spaceship
by Jeffrey Kluger, Ruby Shamir
The exciting and inspiring true story of Apollo 8, the first crewed spaceship to break free of the Earth's orbit and reach the moon, by the best-selling author of Apollo 13.
What's more exciting than spaceships and astronauts? How about a spaceship carrying the first astronauts ever to see the moon firsthand--on Christmas!
The year was 1968, and the American people were still reeling from the spacecraft fire that killed the Apollo 1 crew a year earlier. On top of that, there were rumors that the Russian cosmonauts were getting ready to fly around the moon. NASA realized that they needed to take a bold step--and that they needed to take it now. They wanted to win the space race against Russia and hold true to President Kennedy's promise to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade. So in a risky move, a few days before Christmas of that year, they sent Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders to the moon!
This book about the exciting and inspiring true story of Apollo 8, the first crewed spaceship to break free of Earth's orbit and reach the moon, tells the story of these three brave men, the frantic rush to get their rocket ready, and the journey that gave the American people--and the world--a new look at the planet we live on and the corner of space we inhabit.
Filled with the science and training required to put a person into space, and every detail of what it's like to live in a spaceship for days on end (including what happens when astronauts need to use the bathroom), this book is sure to leave kids clamoring for a spot on the next mission to outer space.
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Raise Your Voice 12 Protests That Shaped America
Twelve stories of protests and marches--and the people, movements, and moments behind them--that shaped our country's history, told by the bestselling author of Apollo 13! Perfect for today's young activists.
Rise up! Speak out! March!
Protests and demonstrations have spread throughout the United States in recent years. They have pushed for change on women's rights, racial equality, climate change, gun control, LGBTQI+ rights, and more. And while these marches may seem like a new phenomenon, they are really the continuation of a long line of Americans taking to their feet and raising their voices to cry out for justice.
From the Boston Tea Party to the suffragists, from the Montgomery Bus Boycott to Stonewall, peaceful (and not-so-peaceful) protest has been a means of speaking up and enacting change from the very founding of America. This new collection recounts twelve of the major protests throughout the country's history, detailing the people behind them, the causes they marched for, and the impact they had.
From the award-winning and bestselling author of Apollo 13 comes a book perfect for today's new generation of activists.
Praise for Raise Your Voice:
"[Kluger] expertly brushes in historical contexts . . . Cogent reminders that armed rebellion isn't the only answer to social injustice." --Kirkus
"Show[s] how one person can inspire many . . . a strong resource for students." --Publishers Weekly
"Readers will become absorbed in each protest's narrative due to Kluger's adept writing." --SLJ
"Recommended for future activists." --SLC
"Well-researched . . . An informative introduction to the history of American protests and their ongoing role in our society." --Booklist
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