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Science of the Magical: From the Holy Grail to Love Potions to Superpowers is informative, scholarly, and unabashedly nerdy. It is also an exceedingly fun read. Author Matt Kaplan leaves no mythical stone unturned, encompassing the magic our ancestors believed in and the magic we believe in today.

438 Days: An Extraordinary True Story of Survival at Sea is the new book from investigative journalist Jonathan Franklin chronicling the amazing true tale of fisherman Salvador Alvarenga, who cheated death as he survived on the open sea for longer than anyone in human history, inspiring the release of ‘The 33’ with Antonio Banderas.

Conversations Live with Vicki St. Clair airs each Monday at noon Pacific on KKNW 1150AM or 94.9FM HD. Like us on Facebook and follow Vicki on Twitter for exclusive updates and contests!

If you’ve ever been curious about elixirs of eternal life, fabled gateways to the underworld, the spells of witches that turn men into beasts or the oracles of ancient Greece, Matt Kaplan is your perfect armchair guide. Science of the Magical: From the Holy Grail to Love Potions to Superpowers considers everything from the Biblical parting of The Red Sea and Viking exploration to the science behind the mutants of X-Men, to new studies regarding autism and modern medical advancements prolonging human life. Matt Kaplan is a science correspondent with The Economist and has contributed weekly articles to its science and technology section for a decade. He has also written for National Geographic, Nature, and The New York Times. When not chained to a desk in England, he travels the world exploring our most cherished myths and legends.

Salvador Alvarenga and a mate went out for a two-day fishing trip, but a storm knocked out their boat’s motor and heavy winds blew them far from shore. Fourteen months later, Alvarenga washed up on a remote island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, near Australia. He had traveled more than 6,000 miles and survived by eating turtles, catching fish and maintaining an unbreakable will to survive. This amazing true tale is chronicled in Jonathan Franklin‘s 438 Days: An Extraordinary True Story of Survival at Sea. Franklin regularly reports for The Guardian, GQ, and Esquire, focusing on Latin America. He also works with the team at Retro Report producing documentaries broadcast by The New York Times.

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Extinctions are inevitable, but nature should get to decide when, not us. There is plenty of time to reverse the processes that are leading to the losses of birds and mammals on a global scale. Conservationist Paul R. Ehrlich examines how we can stop the needless loss of species at our hands in The Annihilation of Nature: Human Extinction of Birds and Mammals. All royalties from this book go to the Navjot Sodhi Fund at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory, which supports the work of young conservation biologists.

Conservationist Liz Cunningham returns to go into further detail regarding her adventure and call to action book Ocean Country: One Woman’s Voyage from Peril to Hope in Her Quest to Save the Seas, as well as to preview the upcoming Paris 2015 Climate Summit.

Conversations Live with Vicki St. Clair airs each Monday at noon Pacific on KKNW 1150AM or 94.9FM HD. Like us on Facebook and follow Vicki on Twitter for exclusive updates and contests!

In The Annihilation of Nature: Human Extinction of Birds and Mammals, Paul R. Ehrlich along with two of today’s most dedicated conservationists tell the stories of the birds and mammals we have lost and those that are now on the road to extinction. These tragic tales, coupled with eighty-three color photographs from the world’s leading nature photographers, display the beauty and biodiversity that humans are squandering. But it’s not too late to reverse this trend and rescue many species from the brink of extinction. Ehrlich is the Bing Professor of Population Studies and the president of the Center for Conservation Biology at Stanford University. He was presented with the distinguished World Ecology Award in 1993, and has written over 40 books on conservation issues, and countless scientific articles and essays. All royalties from Annihilation of Nature go to the Navjot Sodhi Fund at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory, which supports the work of young conservation biologists.

As we approach the Paris 2015 Climate Summit, conservationist Liz Cunningham returns to talk about some of the topics that will be covered at that event as well as her call to action story of adventure and self-discovery, Ocean Country: One Woman’s Voyage from Peril to Hope in Her Quest to Save the Seas. Liz has a B.A. in Human Ecology from College of the Atlantic in Maine, and in addition to her work as a conservationist has been published in numerous newspapers, magazines and journals.

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New York Times bestselling suspense novelist Tess Gerritsen was a medical doctor who never lost the writing bug, eventually trading her stethoscope for a pen and a literary career, and she’s also an accomplished musician. She joins Vicki today to discuss her latest emotional and psychological thriller Playing With Fire.

In Body Intelligence: Harness Your Body’s Energies for Your Best Life, Joseph Cardillo, PhD, reveals how we can use energy to do just about anything: from boosting alertness to beating obsession/addiction to reversing harmful moods.

Conversations Live with Vicki St. Clair airs each Monday at noon Pacific on KKNW 1150AM or 94.9FM HD. Like us on Facebook and follow Vicki on Twitter for exclusive updates and contests!

Imagine if you were home alone and your three-year-old daughter violently attacked you. Julia doesn’t understand what is happening to her daughter, but she thinks she knows what’s causing it. She is terrified for Lily, and for herself, but what scares her more is that no one believes her. Playing With Fire is the latest medical thriller by Tess Gerritsen. Tess is a former physician and international bestselling author whose Rizzoli & Isles books are the inspiration behind a TNT original series starring Angie Harmon and Sasha Alexander.

In Body Intelligence: Harness Your Body’s Energies for Your Best Life, Joseph Cardillo, PhD, combines western science, technology, psychology, and holistic medicine to show that we must first balance the body’s energies before we can enhance the mind. Based on cutting-edge ideas, this perennial guide teaches us to tap into our energetic “sweet spot” and identify specific steps we must take to remove energy blocks. Dr. Cardillo is an inspirational speaker and sought after expert on energy teaching. He is the best-selling author of several books in the fields of psychology, health, and holistic wellness.

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It’s “National Adopt a Senior Dog Month” and we are joined today by Today.com writer, editor, and producer Laura Coffey to celebrate the grand times that can be had with shelter dogs past the age of puppyhood with her book My Old Dog: Rescued Pets with Remarkable Second Acts.

With more data coming out about the link between lifestyle and health, we are in need of simple and memorable strategies for increased energy and vibrancy. In Mountain Mantras: Wellness and Life Lessons from the Slopes, certified nutritional counselor Kathryn Kemp Guylay presents stories and experiences from her personal life, which often offers a hilarious backdrop for studying wellness and life lessons.

Conversations Live with Vicki St. Clair airs each Monday at noon Pacific on KKNW 1150AM or 94.9FM HD. Like us on Facebook and follow Vicki on Twitter for exclusive updates and contests!

My Old Dog: Rescued Pets with Remarkable Second Acts shares success stories that show how blissful retirement can be for older dogs who get rescued, and how senior dog adoption can be a life-changing event for the humans who do the rescuing. Author Laura Coffey is a longtime writer, editor, and producer for TODAY.com, the website of NBC’s TODAY show. An award-winning journalist with more than two decades of experience, Laura has written and edited hundreds of high-profile human-interest stories.

Certified nutritional counselor Kathryn Kemp Guylay has conjured up a recipe for more energy and a more vibrant life in Mountain Mantras: Wellness and Life Lessons from the Slopes. She uses her own personal experiences as a backdrop to lessons that can ultimately help anyone with 6 mantras that will overcome life’s obstacles. As the founder and executive director of Nurture, Kathryn continues to provide free nutrition and wellness education and services to children and families, and as a principal of Healthy Solutions of Sun Valley, Kathryn brings wellness solutions to organizations and corporations through speaking engagements and workshops. She also hosts her own bi-weekly radio show on wellness topics.

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Steve McClatchy, New York Times Bestselling author of Decide: Work Smarter, Reduce Your Stress and Lead by Example joins us today to discuss the ‘art’ of reversing burnout, including why one of the first steps you should take is to banish balance.

October was National Bully Prevention Month but it’s never too late to put a stop to bullying. We welcome Andrew Faas to speak on his work in The Bully’s Trap, which focuses on the first ever U.S. study on workplace wellness and the surprising results.

Many of us suspect that the funeral industry is guilty of gouging the bereaved, and in Greening Death: Reclaiming Burial Practices and Restoring our Tie to the Earth author Suzanne Kelly Ph.D. looks at how standard burial practices harm the environment, and examines some possible solutions.

Conversations Live with Vicki St. Clair airs each Monday at noon Pacific on KKNW 1150AM or 94.9FM HD. Like us on Facebook and follow Vicki on Twitter for exclusive updates and contests!

Who hasn’t been burned out at some point, from work, stress from home life, bills, holidays, etc.? Steve McClatchy wrote Decide: Work Smarter, Reduce Your Stress and Lead by Example to help readers battle and banish burnout. Some of the methods he suggests include NOT achieving balance, as he explains feeling like you are balancing everything out is more important than actually doing it. Finding satisfaction and seeking success are the other cornerstones to putting burnout behind you and living a stress free life. President of Alleer Training and Consulting, Steve is hired by Fortune 500 companies, professional sports teams and non-profits to improve performance in the areas of leadership, time management, decision-making, personal growth and work/life balance.

In a startling result, the first-ever U.S. Study on workplace wellness found that 80 percent of people would rather work alone due to unhelpful or hostile work environments. Andrew Faas used his nonprofit Faas Foundation launched the Initiative to Create Psychologically Healthy Workplaces to explore bullying and wellness in the workplace and to create methods to assess psychological health and eliminate unnecessary stress factors. As someone who was retaliated against after blowing the whistle on a corrupt executive, I have firsthand knowledge of the devastating effects of an unhealthy workplace,” said Faas, who explores the matter further in The Bully’s Trap.

Greening Death: Reclaiming Burial Practices and Restoring our Tie to the Earth by Suzanne Kelly Ph.D. takes a solemn look at the standard burial practices we have conformed with for decades to determine if this over $15 billion industry is harming the environment, and explores some possible alternatives to help us reclaim our ties to the Earth. Kelly is an independent scholar whose work spans the topics of the environment, feminism, sex, and death.

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New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Lori Foster joins us today to talk about the first book of her highly anticipated new Ultimate series, No Limits. Then find out what happened when rock star Stephen Merritt of Magnetic Fields combines his love of rhyme and Scrabble with the illustrations of a New Yorker cartoonist in his first book, 101 Two Letter Words. Later, James MacManus returns to Conversations Live to discuss his historical novel Sleep In Peace Tonight.

Conversations Live with Vicki St. Clair airs each Monday at noon Pacific on KKNW 1150AM or 94.9FM HD. Like us on Facebook and follow Vicki on Twitter for exclusive updates and contests!

NYT and USA Today bestseller Lori Foster is back and embarking on a new series of books known as the Ultimate series. The smoldering debut effort is No Limits, in which a mixed martial arts fighter is reunited via a surprise inheritance with the woman he’s never forgotten. In addition to being a mainstay on various bestselling lists, Lori is heavily involved in charity work, believing strongly in giving back to the community.

Joining Vicki for the third time is James MacManus, whose third novel, the historical Sleep In Peace Tonight, tells the story of Harry Hopkins, who in 1941 who was sent to London to gauge the escalating situation regarding World War II. Hopkins was instrumental in encouraging FDR to join forces with Winston Churchill to defeat Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. MacManus is currently the managing director of The Times Literary Supplement in London. He is also the author of The Ocean Devil which was made into a film starring Jonathan Rhys Davis.

What happens when rock star Stephen Merritt of Magnetic Fields, combines his love of rhyme and Scrabble, with the illustrations of renowned New Yorker cartoonist, Roz Chast? The result is his first book, 101 Two Letter Words. In the introduction, Merritt explains the impetus for the book, a back story involving the reality of his life as a touring musician (who spends a lot of time waiting in airports and hotels) and his passion for Scrabble and Words with Friends. With his band the Magnetic Fields, Merritt has written, recorded, and produced ten albums, including the highly acclaimed 69 Love Songs, which was named one of the 500 best albums of all time by Rolling Stone.

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Creative writing teacher Ken Murray’s powerful debut novel, Eulogy, explores an unusual, Rapture-obsessed fundamentalist Christian family that places all of its hopes on catastrophic destruction.

Katherine Neville’s immensely popular historical quest novels The Eight, A Calculated Risk and The Magic Circle are available digitally for the first time. People Magazine says “With alchemical skill, Neville blends modern romance, historical fiction, and medieval mystery…and comes up with gold.”

Conversations Live with Vicki St. Clair airs each Monday at noon Pacific on KKNW 1150AM or 94.9FM HD. Like us on Facebook and follow Vicki on Twitter for exclusive updates and contests!

Ken Murray’s debut novel Eulogy follows the controlled and calm life of William Oaks after it is shattered when his parents suddenly die in a car crash. Now he must face the obsessions and denials that have formed him. threatening to derail his life as he feverishly prepares for one of the most important moments in his career. Murray is a teacher of creative writing whose works have appeared in numerous periodicals, and he has numerous awards such as the inaugural Marina Nemat Award and the Random House Award.

Katherine Neville’s immensely popular historical quest novels The Eight, A Calculated Risk and The Magic Circle are available as eBooks for the first time from Open Road Media. A #1 international bestseller in 40 languages, The Eight made edge-of-your-seat historical thrillers popular long before Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code. The Washington Post declared The Eight “a feminist answer to Raiders of the Lost Ark” and has captivated readers since its publication in 1988. Neville’s novels have been published in more than 80 countries, enriched by her 20 year career as an international computer executive and consultant, which took her to live in six countries on three continents and 26 of the United States.

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What’s the difference between making a purchase from need, from habit, or from ritual? If you’re looking to build customers for life, you need to understand how to create a brand ritual and Zain Raj tells us how in Brand Rituals: How Successful Brands Bond with Customers for Life. He’s a sought-after speaker on the changing marketing landscape, espousing the view that marketing needs to change people’s behavior to forge strong relationships with core customers.

Bob Caporale wears many hats: he’s spent his career developing strategies for products and businesses. He’s also an accomplished keyboardist, composer, and songwriter. In his new book Creative Strategy Generation: Using Passion and Creativity to Compose Business Strategies That Inspire Action and Growth, he explores the connections between composing music and composing successful business strategies.

Carrol Vallone Mitchell’s new book, Breaking Through “Bitch”, takes an innovative, sometimes controversial approach, using stories from executives at the highest corporate levels to show how women can hone their innate skills, rise to the top, and be effective, outstanding leaders. It addresses head-on why women cannot and should not “act like men.”

Conversations Live with Vicki St. Clair airs each Monday at noon Pacific on KKNW 1150AM or 94.9FM HD. Like us on Facebook and follow Vicki on Twitter for exclusive updates and contests!

Brand Rituals: How Successful Brands Bond with Customers for Life provides a new approach to building brands in today’s digitally-led environment. Author Zain Raj emphasizes innovation and a strong belief in empowering others. Zain is the Chairman and CEO of Shapiro + Raj, a top-ten independent research and insights company. Zain is also the founder and CEO of zednext, an ideas incubator that takes an objective and disruptive look at issues and trends to help marketers and business leaders realize their full potential in a data-driven, digitally led and insights-driven world. Most recently he was CEO of Epsilon Agency Services (EAS), the largest global CRM.

Creative Strategy Generation: Using Passion and Creativity to Compose Business Strategies That Inspire Action and Growth by Bob Caporale explores the connections between the strategic and creative processes, and demystifies the complexities of developing a strategic plan. He combines his two areas of expertise, parelleling the process of composing music with the process of developing business strategies. Bob is the president of Sequent Learning Networks, a New York City–based training and advisory firm specializing in product management, product marketing, and strategic planning. Throughout his career, Bob has held leadership and executive roles in engineering, marketing, product management, and general management for multi-billion-dollar companies. He is also an accomplished keyboardist, composer, and songwriter. He has written and produced over 100 independently released songs, albums, and soundtracks.

Breaking Through “Bitch” takes an innovative, sometimes controversial approach, using stories from executives at the highest corporate levels to show how women can hone their innate skills, rise to the top, and be effective, outstanding leaders. It addresses head-on why women cannot and should not “act like men.” Author Carrol Vallone Mitchell describes the unique profile of behaviors that top women leaders have in common, reveals why such stereotypically feminine characteristics as nurturing, empathy, and inclusiveness are the keys to power, not signs of weakness, and shows how these characteristics can be equally effective for men in our fast-changing world. Carol is co-founder of Talent Strategy Partners, a talent management consulting firm and has worked with numerous Fortune 500 companies to identify and develop leaders who can build and nurture the right workplace culture and drive results. She uses her expertise as a doctorate in organizational behavior and 20 years of leadership development experience as a go-to speaker for companies and professional associations.

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Scientific evidence accumulated over decades validates the idea that a plant-based dietary pattern promotes health and plays an important role in risk reduction and prevention of several chronic diseases. John J.B. Anderson, PhD, and Marilyn C. Sparling, LDN share how to move towards a healthier diet in your life in The Mediterranean Way of Eating: Evidence for Chronic Disease Prevention and Weight Management.

Actor and NY Times Bestseller Nick Offerman offers some advice regarding Esquire Senior Editor Ross McCammon’s new book, Works Well With Others: An Outsiders Guide to Shaking Hands, Shutting Up, Handling Jerks, and Other Crucial Skills in Business That No One Ever Teaches You… “Do not read this book at work. That’s because it will make you snort with laughter, perhaps even giggle, and generally look unprofessional…This is my favorite business book in years.”

Homefront 911: How Families of Veterans Are Wounded by Our Wars takes a look at the battles that families face in getting care for returning veterans. Author Stacy Bannerman is not only a military family advocate and public speaker on the issue who has testified before congressional committees, she writes from personal experience as her husband served in Iraq.

Conversations Live with Vicki St. Clair airs each Monday at noon Pacific on KKNW 1150AM or 94.9FM HD. Like us on Facebook and follow Vicki on Twitter for exclusive updates and contests!

John J.B. Anderson, PhD, and Marilyn C. Sparling, LDN have discovered a way to eat that will decrease the risk of chronic disease, aid in weight management and make you healthier overall. In The Mediterranean Way of Eating: Evidence for Chronic Disease Prevention and Weight Management they break down the facts and show how eating a Mediterranean inspired diet can help prevent and even treat diseases such as certain cancers, type 2 diabtetes, cardiovascular diseases and even obesity. They also provide recipes and strategies to integrate the diet into your life. John J. B. Anderson, PhD, has been on the faculty of the Department of Nutrition in the Gillings School of Global Public Health at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill since 1972. He has published several books and written over 150 scientific articles. Mariyln C. Sparling, LDN, recently retired from Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina, where she was a clinical dietitian in the outpatient endocrinology division. She has coauthored several journal articles on nutrition and health

Ten years ago, before he got a job at Esquire magazine and way before he became the etiquette columnist at Entrepreneur magazine, Esquire Senior Editor Ross McCammon, editor at an in-flight magazine, was staring out a second-floor window at a parking lot in suburban Dallas wondering if it was five o’clock yet. Everything changed with one phone call from Esquire. Three weeks later, he was working in New York and wondering what the hell had just happened. Works Well With Others: An Outsiders Guide to Shaking Hands, Shutting Up, Handling Jerks, and Other Crucial Skills in Business That No One Ever Teaches You is McCammon’s honest, funny, and entertaining journey from impostor to authority, a story that begins with periods of debilitating workplace anxiety but leads to rich insights and practical advice from a guy who “made it” but who still remembers what it’s like to feel entirely ill-equipped for professional success.

It’s no secret that returning combat veterans have an enormous amount of obstacles to face to re-integrate into civilian society, and while things have improved, it’s not nearly enough. In Homefront 911: How Families of Veterans Are Wounded by Our Wars, author Stacy Bannerman examines some of the key components in paving the way for our combat veterans to make the transition easier, including proposed national solutions to provide better care for returning vets and their families, the need to establish House and Senate Veterans affairs subcommittees, and one often overlooked aspect in the added stress that overwhelms caregivers coupled with combat trauma and how it inversely affects the children and grandchildren of both the combat vets and caregivers. Stacy is a military family advocate who has addressed congressional committees. Her husband served in Iraq.

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Are there still lost cities waiting in the jungle to be discovered? In the 21st century, can an explorer, fired only by the romantic lure of lost civilizations, still find one? The answer is yes. National Geographic filmmaker and explorer Steve Elkins shares the amazing story of his decades-long quest in Explorer: Legend of the Monkey God.

Ocean Country by conservationist Liz Cunningham is an adventure story, a call to action, and a poetic meditation on the state of the seas. But most importantly, it is one woman’s personal journey to find true hope in the midst of one of the greatest crises to face humankind.

Conversations Live with Vicki St. Clair airs each Monday at noon Pacific on KKNW 1150AM or 94.9FM HD. Like us on Facebook and follow Vicki on Twitter for exclusive updates and contests!

For twenty-two years, National Geographic filmmaker and explorer Steve Elkins has been searching in the dense jungles of Honduras’ Mosquitia region for a legendary White City. National Geographic hosts the documentary of his quest in Explorer: Legend of the Monkey God. The film tells the amazing story of his decades-long search, his astonishing discovery and how archeologists are just now starting to unravel the mysteries of an ancient culture.

Ocean Country: One Woman’s Voyage from Peril to Hope in Her Quest to Save the Seas by conservationist Liz Cunningham “reveals how immersion into the problems that overwhelm us is a blessing of self-discovery. Where there is carelessness, we find our tenderness; where there is human suffering, we find our sense of compassion. Where there is damage and degradation, we find faith in ourselves,” according to author Paul Hawken. Liz has a B.A. in Human Ecology from College of the Atlantic in Maine, and in addition to her work as a conservationist has been published in numerous newspapers, magazines and journals.

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