{"title":"D T Max","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"family-that-couldn-t-sleep-book-d-t-max-9781400062454","title":"The Family That Couldn't Sleep","description":"For two hundred years a noble Venetian family has suffered from an inherited disease that strikes their members in middle age, stealing their sleep, eating holes in their brains, and ending their lives in a matter of months. In Papua New Guinea, a primitive tribe is nearly obliterated by a sickness whose chief symptom is uncontrollable laughter. Across Europe, millions of sheep rub their fleeces raw before collapsing. In England, cows attack their owners in the milking parlors, while in the American West, thousands of deer starve to death in fields full of grass. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eWhat these strange conditions-including fatal familial insomnia, kuru, scrapie, and mad cow disease-share is their cause: prions. Prions are ordinary proteins that sometimes go wrong, resulting in neurological illnesses that are always fatal. Even more mysterious and frightening, prions are almost impossible to destroy because they are not alive and have no DNA-and the diseases they bring are now spreading around the world. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eThe Family That Couldn't Sleep\u003c\/i\u003e, essayist and journalist D. T. Max tells the spellbinding story of the prion's hidden past and deadly future. Through exclusive interviews and original archival research, Max explains this story's connection to human greed and ambition-from the Prussian chemist Justus von Liebig, who made cattle meatier by feeding them the flesh of other cows, to New Guinean natives whose custom of eating the brains of the dead nearly wiped them out. The biologists who have investigated these afflictions are just as extraordinary-for example, Daniel Carleton Gajdusek, a self-described \u003cbr\u003epedagogic pedophiliac pediatrician who cracked kuru and won the Nobel Prize, and another Nobel winner, Stanley Prusiner, a driven, feared self-promoter who identified the key protein that revolutionized prion study. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eWith remarkable precision, grace, and sympathy, Max-who himself suffers from an inherited neurological illness-explores maladies that have tormented humanity for centuries and gives reason to hope that someday cures will be found. And he eloquently demonstrates that in our relationship to nature and these ailments, we have been our own worst enemy. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eAdvance praise \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Family that Couldn't Sleep\u003c\/i\u003e is a riveting detective story that plumbs one of the deepest mysteries of biology. The story takes the reader from the torments of an Italian family cursed with sleeplessness to the mad cows of England (and, now, America), following an unlikely trail of misfolded proteins. D. T. Max unfolds his absorbing narrative with rare grace and makes the science sing. -Michael Pollan, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Omnivore's Dilemma\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Botany of Desire\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eMuch has been written about prions and Mad Cow Disease-nearly all of it is worthless. Thankfully, from the world of journalism comes D.T. Max to set things right. Throw all those other Mad Cow books in the trash: This is the book to read about prions-or whatever you want to call them. It's a riveting tale, told by someone with a very special understanding, derived in part from his own strange ailment. Find a cozy spot, clear your schedule and dive in.\u003cbr\u003e- Laurie Garrett, author of \u003ci\u003eBetrayal of Trust \u003c\/i\u003eand\u003ci\u003e The Coming Plague\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eD. T. Max deftly unfolds the mysterious prion in all its villainous guises. Although scientists do not fully understand these proteins-how they replicate and wreak such havoc in their victims' brains-\u003ci\u003eThe Family That Couldn't Sleep\u003c\/i\u003e reveals their historical, cultural, and scientific place in our world. Prepare to be enlightened, entertained, and frightened.\u003cbr\u003e-Katrina Firlik, MD, author of \u003ci\u003eAnother Day in the Frontal Lobe\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eA great book.\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003eD.T. Max has drawn the curtain on a cabinet of folly\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e and malady that will stagger your imagination.\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e- Philip Weiss, author of \u003ci\u003eAmerican Taboo\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eD.T. Max has combined the enthralling medical anthropology of Oliver Sacks with the gothic horror of Stephen King to produce a medical detective story that is as intelligent as it is spooky. The villain of \u003ci\u003eThe Family That Couldn't Sleep\u003c\/i\u003e is the prion, a tiny little protein that causes some of the most terrifying, brain-mangling, creepy diseases known to man. Always fascinating-how could it not be, given that its characters include cannibals, mad cows, madder sheep, a Nobel prize-winning pedophile, and, most poignantly, an Italian family cursed by fatal insomnia?-Max's book is also a gripping account of scientific discovery, and a heartfelt meditation on what it means to be cursed with an incurable, and brutal, illness. - David Plotz, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Genius Factory\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49653669331217,"sku":"GOR013423065","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49656110350609,"sku":"GOR013376783","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50420466286865,"sku":"CIN1400062454VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50430096703761,"sku":"CIN1400062454G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50793011839249,"sku":"GOR004952693","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":52094067212561,"sku":"CIN1400062454A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1400062454.jpg?v=1751337268"},{"product_id":"finale-book-d-t-max-9780063279810","title":"Finale","description":"\u003cp\u003e\"Brazenly entertaining. . . . It summons to the page a Broadway voice like no other.\"--Los Angeles Times\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"[An] erudite and affably self-conscious memoir of the creative process.\"--Vulture\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eAn intimate portrait of a genius: the late Stephen Sondheim in a series of illuminating and deeply personal interviews from the last years of his life--conversations that show the composer-lyricist as he has likely never been seen before.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eIn 2017, New Yorker staff writer D.T. Max began working on a major profile of Stephen Sondheim that would be timed to the eventual premiere of a new musical Sondheim was writing. Sadly , that process - and the years of conversation - was cut short by Sondheim's own hesitations, then the global pandemic, and finally by the great artist's death in November 2021.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eNow, Max has taken the raw version of these conversations and knit them together into an unforgettable work of literature and celebration. Finale reveals Sondheim--a star who disliked the spotlight--at his most relaxed, thoughtful, sardonic, and engaging, as he talks about work, music, movies, family, New York City, aging, the creative process, and much more.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eMax brings you into the room and gives you a front row seat for their unusual and intimate three-year-long \"pas de deux.\" The two bond, spar, separate, and reunite, as Max elicits from Sondheim a candor and vulnerability he seldom displayed in public. \u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThis is a unique portrait of an artist in his twilight, offering remarkable insight into the mind and heart of a genius whose work changed American musical theater and popular culture forever.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49677366591761,"sku":"CIN0063279819G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49951525667089,"sku":"CIN0063279819VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51023448604945,"sku":"GOR014165815","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51069271179537,"sku":"NIN9780063279810","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":51323856552209,"sku":"CIN0063279819A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0063279819.jpg?v=1751069385"},{"product_id":"family-that-couldn-t-sleep-book-d-t-max-9781846270895","title":"Family That Couldn't Sleep","description":"Can there be a nastier way to die than from a chronic inability to sleep? How this appalling affliction killed dozens of members of one aristocratic Venetian family over the last three centuries only to emerge in the 1990s as the key to the hunt for the cause of a cluster of diseases - including Mad Cow, Alzheimer's and scrapie - is the utterly compelling, surprising story told here. This work is for readers of cultured science writers like Jared Diamond, Steve Jones and Stephen Jay Gould, but also fans of Oliver Sacks and Alain de Botton. In 1765, Venetian doctors were stumped by the death of a man who had suffered from chronic insomnia for more than a year and spent his final months paralyzed by exhaustion. Over the next two centuries, many of his descendants developed the same fatal sleep-stealing symptoms, and their loved ones were forced to witness a most excruciating lingering death, whose cause continued to baffle the experts until the 1990s when their sickness was recognized as a rare heritable disease. In this atmospheric and groundbreaking work of detection, Max tells the history of the rogue condition that has blighted one unlucky family for generations.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49707152867601,"sku":"GOR001839414","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":50391309386001,"sku":"CIN1846270898A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50450544394513,"sku":"GOR005606138","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50670282703121,"sku":"GOR008386658","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50957856801041,"sku":"CIN1846270898G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1846270898.jpg?v=1750995748"},{"product_id":"every-love-story-is-a-ghost-story-book-d-t-max-9780670025923","title":"Every Love Story Is a Ghost Story","description":"\u003cp\u003eDavid Foster Wallace was the leading literary light of his generation, a man who not only captivated readers with his prose but also mesmerized them with his brilliant mind. In this, the first biography of the writer, D. T. Max sets out to chart Wallace's tormented, anguished, and often triumphant battle to succeed as a novelist as he fights off depression and addiction to emerge with his masterpiece, \u003ci\u003eInfinite Jest\u003c\/i\u003e. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSince his untimely death by suicide at the age of forty-six in 2008, Wallace has become more than the representative writer of his time--he has become a symbol of sincerity and honesty in an inauthentic age. His reputation and reach grow by the day. Max takes us from Wallace's early years as a child of the 1970s in the Midwest to his hothouse success in his twenties and subsequent collapse into depression and drugs, and from there through his painful reemergence as an apostle of recovery, ending with his triumphant novel of addiction and redemption, the book of the decade, published when he was just thirty-three. But \u003ci\u003eInfinite Jest\u003c\/i\u003e itself left as an open question what should come next, as Wallace sought hopefully--and then, increasingly, helplessly--for a way forward, stymied even in the midst of the happiest personal time he had ever known. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMax guides us on this remarkable literary and spiritual journey, this prolonged exploration of what it means to be human. Wallace was coy with the press and very private, yet the concerns of his writing and the struggles of his life were always closely intertwined. In illuminating the life, Max enriches our understanding of the work. And in his skillful, active investigations into Wallace's prose, he reveals the author in unexpected ways. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the end, as Max argues, what is most important about Wallace is not just the words he left behind but what he taught us about life, showing that whatever the price, the fight to live meaningfully is always worth the struggle. Written with the cooperation of Wallace family members and friends and with access to hundreds of his unpublished letters, manuscripts, journals, and audio tapes, this deeply researched portrait of an extraordinarily gifted author is as fresh as news, as intimate as a letter from a friend, as painful as a goodbye.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49764306714897,"sku":"CIN0670025925G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49982715986193,"sku":"GOR005811586","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53345390559505,"sku":"GOR007685644","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0670025925.jpg?v=1751008450"},{"product_id":"every-love-story-is-a-ghost-story-book-d-t-max-9780147509727","title":"Every Love Story Is a Ghost Story","description":"\u003cb\u003eThe acclaimed \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e-bestselling biography and \"emotionally detailed portrait of the artist as a young man\" (Michiko Kakutani, \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e In the first biography of the iconic David Foster Wallace, D.T. Max paints the portrait of a man, self-conscious, obsessive and struggling to find meaning. If Wallace was right when he declared he was \"frightfully and thoroughly conventional,\" it is only because over the course of his short life and stunning career, he wrestled intimately and relentlessly with the fundamental anxiety of being human. In his characteristic lucid and quick-witted style, Max untangles Wallace's anxious sense of self, his volatile and sometimes abusive connection with women, and above all, his fraught relationship with fiction as he emerges with his masterpiece \u003ci\u003eInfinite Jest. \u003c\/i\u003eWritten with the cooperation of Wallace's family and friends and with access to hundreds of unpublished letters, manuscripts and journals, this captivating biography unveils the life of the profoundly complicated man who gave voice to what we thought we could not say.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49769703637265,"sku":"CIN0147509726G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":49779202916625,"sku":"CIN0147509726A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50175897010449,"sku":"CIN0147509726VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":50999512563985,"sku":"NIN9780147509727","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52848865640721,"sku":"GOR014639849","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0147509726.jpg?v=1751290628"},{"product_id":"family-that-couldn-t-sleep-book-d-t-max-9780812972528","title":"The Family That Couldn't Sleep","description":"For two hundred years a noble Venetian family has suffered from an inherited disease that strikes their members in middle age, stealing their sleep, eating holes in their brains, and ending their lives in a matter of months. In Papua New Guinea, a primitive tribe is nearly obliterated by a sickness whose chief symptom is uncontrollable laughter. Across Europe, millions of sheep rub their fleeces raw before collapsing. In England, cows attack their owners in the milking parlors, while in the American West, thousands of deer starve to death in fields full of grass.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e What these strange conditions-including fatal familial insomnia, kuru, scrapie, and mad cow disease-share is their cause: prions. Prions are ordinary proteins that sometimes go wrong, resulting in neurological illnesses that are always fatal. Even more mysterious and frightening, prions are almost impossible to destroy because they are not alive and have no DNA-and the diseases they bring are now spreading around the world.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e In \u003ci\u003eThe Family That Couldn''t Sleep\u003c\/i\u003e, essayist and journalist D. T. Max tells the spellbinding story of the prion''s hidden past and deadly future. Through exclusive interviews and original archival research, Max explains this story''s connection to human greed and ambition-from the Prussian chemist Justus von Liebig, who made cattle meatier by feeding them the flesh of other cows, to New Guinean natives whose custom of eating the brains of the dead nearly wiped them out. The biologists who have investigated these afflictions are just as extraordinary-for example, Daniel Carleton Gajdusek, a self-described\u003cbr\u003e \"pedagogic pedophiliac pediatrician\" who cracked kuru and won the Nobel Prize, and another Nobel winner, Stanley Prusiner, a driven, feared self-promoter who identified the key protein that revolutionized prion study.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e With remarkable precision, grace, and sympathy, Max-who himself suffers from an inherited neurological illness-explores maladies that have tormented humanity for centuries and gives reason to hope that someday cures will be found. And he eloquently demonstrates that in our relationship to nature and these ailments, we have been our own worst enemy.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cu\u003eAdvance praise\u003c\/u\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \"\u003ci\u003eThe Family that Couldn''t Sleep\u003c\/i\u003e is a riveting detective story that plumbs one of the deepest mysteries of biology. The story takes the reader from the torments of an Italian family cursed with sleeplessness to the mad cows of England (and, now, America), following an unlikely trail of misfolded proteins. D. T. Max unfolds his absorbing narrative with rare grace and makes the science sing.\" -Michael Pollan, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Omnivore''s Dilemma\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Botany of Desire\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \"Much has been written about prions and Mad Cow Disease-nearly all of it is worthless. Thankfully, from the world of journalism comes D.T. Max to set things right. Throw all those other \"Mad Cow\" books in the trash: This is the book to read about prions-or whatever you want to call them. It''s a riveting tale, told by someone with a very special understanding, derived in part from his own strange ailment. Find a cozy spot, clear your schedule and dive in.\"\u003cbr\u003e - Laurie Garrett, author of \u003ci\u003eBetrayal of Trust\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Coming Plague\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \"D. T. Max deftly unfolds the mysterious prion in all its villainous guises. Although scientists do not fully understand these proteins-how they replicate and wreak such havoc in their victims'' brains-\u003ci\u003eThe Family That Couldn''t Sleep\u003c\/i\u003e reveals their historical, cultural, and scientific place in our world. Prepare to be enlightened, entertained, and frightened.\"\u003cbr\u003e -Katrina Firlik, MD, author of \u003ci\u003eAnother Day in the Frontal Lobe\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \"A great book.\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003eD.T. Max has drawn the curtain on a cabinet of folly\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e and malady that will stagger your imagination.\"\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e- Philip Weiss, author of \u003ci\u003eAmerican Taboo\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \"D.T. Max has combined the enthralling medical anthropology of Oliver Sacks with the gothic horror of Stephen King to produce a medical detective story that is as intelligent as it is spooky. The villain of \u003ci\u003eThe Family That Couldn''t Sleep\u003c\/i\u003e is the prion, a tiny little protein that causes some of the most terrifying, brain-mangling, creepy diseases known to man. Always fascinating-how could it not be, given that its characters include cannibals, mad cows, madder sheep, a Nobel prize-winning pedophile, and, most poignantly, an Italian family cursed by fatal insomnia?-Max''s book is also a gripping account of scientific discovery, and a heartfelt meditation on what it means to be cursed with an incurable, and brutal, illness.\" - David Plotz, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Genius Factory\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49918731223313,"sku":"CIN081297252XG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":50268607611153,"sku":"CIN081297252XA","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50954448732433,"sku":"CIN081297252XVG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52436368130321,"sku":"NIN9780812972528","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53022171300113,"sku":"GOR008131612","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53155464806673,"sku":"GOR005935227","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/081297252X.jpg?v=1751233314"},{"product_id":"the-family-that-couldn-t-sleep-a-medical-mystery-cd-9781400102891","title":"The Family That Couldn't Sleep","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50380178653457,"sku":"CIN1400102898VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1400102898.jpg?v=1750755543"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/collections\/author-books-by-d-t-max.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}