This Is the Author

"I found out I was writing a poetry book at the end of last year and I had all of 45 days to put it together. And I wrote this entire book while I was traveling to Peru to go do an Ayahuasca immersion with some shamans in the middle of the jungle and I've never had to work on something so diligently before. Every single day. If I missed one day I would have been off track. I kind of fell into a vortex with this book, this poetry vortex."

Learn more: http://www.penguinrandomhouseaudio.com/book/586136/all-of-it-is-you/

"This is a story of natural disasters through human history, from Pompeii to Hurricane Katrina to the Japanese Great Tsunami, the stories of natural disasters, so that we can see how these disasters affect us both physically and socially."

Learn more: http://www.penguinrandomhouseaudio.com/book/554995/the-big-ones/

"What planted the seed for this book for me was an agent who came to me because he had benefited personally from our work and from our collaborative problem solving approach and it had a transformative effect upon him and his family. And he came to me and said he thought there was a much broader audience for my work."

Learn more: http://www.penguinrandomhouseaudio.com/book/540671/changeable/

"This book actually began when the editor of THE NEW YORKER, David Remnick, called me into his office and asked me to explain Texas because he can’t understand why I live here. And, to be honest, I’ve wondered about that myself. "

Learn more: http://www.penguinrandomhouseaudio.com/book/561612/god-save-texas/

"I’ve worked as a journalist in politics for a number of years and the subject of immigration has always fascinated me, not simply because my family is a family of immigrants but also because of the fundamental questions that the issue of immigration raises: Who are we as a country? Who is an American? What does it mean to be an American? And how have those definitions changed overtime? So when I began this book I wanted to address those central questions through a personal lens and this is the result of that endeavor."

Learn more: http://www.penguinrandomhouseaudio.com/book/248653/futureface/

"I first saw STAR WARS when I was tiny, I think I was three. RETURN OF THE JEDI was probably the first movie I saw at the movie theaters, and I saw it many times...I was in love. And I’m still in love. I’ve just loved that world my whole life."

Learn more: http://www.penguinrandomhouseaudio.com/book/568276/last-shot-star-wars/

"What planted the seed for this book was the Air traffic control strike of 1981. It was a turning point in my life and, obviously, it was a big turning point in my father’s life. And it was also a huge turning point in labor history, not only in America but around the world."

Learn more: http://www.penguinrandomhouseaudio.com/book/549724/air-traffic/

"Our book is about influence. The question is: What is influence? On a very basic level, influence can be defined as the ability to move a person or persons to a desired action, usually within the context of a specific goal. Now that definition is legitimate and certainly works but I don’t believe it’s the substance of influence, which really is pull."

Learn more: http://www.penguinrandomhouseaudio.com/book/314009/the-go-giver-influencer/

"My book is about endurance; specifically, it’s about this emerging sport known “fastest known times,” which are basically trail records on the super long trails like the Appalachian Trail and Pacific Crest Trail. But it also talks about the really amazing people who have set these records, and some of them are my friends and mentors. I wanted to talk about them and then also share my experience as a record setter and illustrate how it was so empowering for me to realize that there is no gender divide when it comes to endurance."

Learn more: http://www.penguinrandomhouseaudio.com/book/548048/the-pursuit-of-endurance/

"I was inspired by my work as a veterinary internal medicine specialist. Although, if I'm honest, when I first started writing this book it was not going to be about my job as a vet. It was going to be about pretty much anything other than that. But once I started writing I realized that there was really only one story I wanted to tell, and that was the story of my patients and the things that they’ve taught me about life, and about medicine, and about being a veterinarian."

Learn more: http://www.penguinrandomhouseaudio.com/book/250324/my-patients-and-other-animals/