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Collecting the most celebrated stories from the hit podcast Risk!, along with all-new true tales about explosive secrets and off-the-wall adventures, this book paints a spellbinding portrait of the transformational moments we experience in life but rarely talk about. No topics are off-limits in Risk!, no memories too revealing to share. From accidentally harboring a teen fugitive to being poisoned while tripping on LSD in the Mayan ruins, these stories transport readers into uncharted territory and show how your life can change when you take an extraordinary leap.

In these jaw-dropping stories, edited and introduced by Risk! host Kevin Allison, writers reveal how they pushed drugs for a Mexican cartel only to end up kidnapped and nearly killed, how they joined a terrifying male-empowerment cult and fought desperately for a way out, how they struggled with pregnancy complications and found a hero where they least expected it, and so much more. A lifelong construction worker shares the intimate details of transitioning to being a woman, a bestselling author discusses how he assumed the identity of his babysitter online in a social experiment gone awry, and a beloved comedian discusses how a blow job from a prostitute changed his life. By turns cautionary and inspiring, RISK presents an extraordinary panorama of the breadth of human experience and a stunning tribute to the power of the truth to set us free.

Featuring essays by:

• Aisha Tyler
• A.J. Jacobs
• Michael Ian Black
• Marc Maron
• Lili Taylor
• Dan Savage
• Paul F. Tompkins
• TS Madison
• Jonah Ray
• And many more

With his writing and acting work on MTV's legendary sketch comedy series, The State, as well as on Reno 911!, High Maintenance, Blue Man Group and more, Kevin Allison has created all kinds of stories. In 2009, he launched Risk!, the live show and podcast where people tell true stories they never thought they'd dare to share, which is downloaded over 2.5 million times per month. Allison is also the founder of The Story Studio in New York, where he has taught the art of storytelling to bestselling authors, well-known comedians, and executives from a range of fields.

Eight years ago, in an unprecedented intellectual endeavor, the Dalai Lama invited Emory University to integrate modern science into the education of the thousands of Tibetan Buddhist monks and nuns in exile in India. This project, the Emory Tibet Science Initiative, became the first major change in the monastic curriculum in six centuries. Eight years in, the results are transformative. The singular backdrop of teaching science to Tibetan Buddhist monks and nuns offered provocative insights into how science and religion can work together to enrich each other, as well as to shed light on life and what it means to be a thinking, biological human. In The Enlightened Gene, Emory University Professor Dr. Arri Eisen, together with monk Geshe Yungdrung Konchok explore the striking ways in which the integration of Buddhism with cutting-edge discoveries in the biological sciences can change our understanding of life and how we live it. What this book discovers along the way will fundamentally change the way you think.

Are humans inherently good? Where does compassion come from? Is death essential for life? Is experience inherited? These questions have occupied philosophers, religious thinkers and scientists since the dawn of civilization, but in today's political discourse, much of the dialogue surrounding them and larger issues--such as climate change, abortion, genetically modified organisms, and evolution--are often framed as a dichotomy of science versus spirituality. Strikingly, many of new biological discoveries--such as the millions of microbes that we now know live together as part of each of us, the connections between those microbes and our immune systems, the nature of our genomes and how they respond to the environment, and how this response might be passed to future generations -- can actually be read as moving science closer to spiritual concepts, rather than further away. The Enlightened Gene opens up and lays a foundation for serious conversations, integrating science and spirit in tackling life's big questions. Each chapter integrates Buddhism and biology and uses striking examples of how doing so changes our understanding of life and how we lead it.

Arri Eisen is a Professor of Pedagogy in Biology, the Institute of the Liberal Arts, and the Center for Ethics at Emory University. He founded and has directed for over a decade Emory's Program in Science & Society, which develops innovative programs for the public and students in and out of the classroom in science and religion, science and ethics, and science and art.

We have long understood the Industrial Revolution as a triumphant story of innovation and technology. Empire of Guns, a rich and ambitious new book by award-winning historian Priya Satia, upends this conventional wisdom by placing war and Britain's prosperous gun trade at the heart of the Industrial Revolution and the state's imperial expansion.

Satia brings to life this bustling industrial society with the story of a scandal: Samuel Galton of Birmingham, one of Britain's most prominent gunmakers, has been condemned by his fellow Quakers, who argue that his profession violates the society's pacifist principles. In his fervent self-defense, Galton argues that the state's heavy reliance on industry for all of its war needs means that every member of the British industrial economy is implicated in Britain's near-constant state of war.

Satia uses the story of Galton and the gun trade, from Birmingham to the outermost edges of the British empire, to illuminate the nation's emergence as a global superpower, the roots of the state's role in economic development, and the origins of our era's debates about gun control and the "military-industrial complex" -- that thorny partnership of government, the economy, and the military. Through Satia's eyes, we acquire a radically new understanding of this critical historical moment and all that followed from it.

Sweeping in its scope and entirely original in its approach, this is a masterful new work of history -- a rigorous historical argument with a human story at its heart.

Priya Satia is a Professor of History at Stanford University. She is the author of Spies in Arabia: The Great War and the Cultural Foundations of Britain's Covert Empire in the Middle East, and her writing has appeared in Slate, the Financial Times, The Nation, and the Huffington Post, among other publications. She received a MSc in Development Studies (Economics) at the London School of Economics and a PhD in History at the University of California, Berkeley. She lives in Stanford, California with her family.

Meet & Greet

What's the best corkscrew to use? Should I decant? How many types of glassware should I buy? Sommelier Kathleen Bershad has the answers. In The Wine Lover's Apprentice, Bershad acknowledges the importance of tossing out the rules about wine and taking a relaxed approach to storing and serving everyday bottles.

Readers will learn tricks of the trade and strategies for navigating the shelves of a retail store or ordering wine at a restaurant. Bershad delves into the nitty-gritty details of winemaking and takes a look at the world's major wine regions. Written in short bites, readers will easily gain a quick understanding of an area's major grapes, the style or styles of wine, and the appellations that offer the best quality wine (or the best value). Topics include:

• What You're Tasting When You Taste Wine
• Conquering the Restaurant Wine List
• Navigating the Wine Shop
• Serving,Sipping, and Storing
• And More

Bershad unravels the terms you see when reading a wine review, looking at a bottle, or listening to a wine geek talk vino. By the end of this helpful guide, readers will become empowered to know what's in a bottle, be able to make an educated guess about its flavors, and help change the culture to make drinking wine what it should be--relaxing and fun.

Kathleen Bershad has fifteen years of experience in the food and wine industry and has honed the art of matching people with wine. Through her company, Fine Wine Concierge, she advises clients on building wine collections and organizing their cellars. She resides in Armonk, New York.