Charles Panati
Personal Information
Description
Charles Panati was born in Baltimore, MD, and raised in Atlantic City, NJ. His family had worked with the Miss America Pageant, and in his early twenties Panati worked as an escort for pageant contestants. In 1965 he received a B.S. in physics from Villanova University, and in 1966 he received a M.Sc. in Radiation Health Physics from Columbia University. After graduating, he worked in cancer research at the Columbia Presbyterian Hospital. In 1971 he became a science reporter for Newsweek Magazine. He became interested in parapsychology and his first book , Supersenses: Our Potential for Parasensory Experience (1974) was about extrasensory perception. He followed up with other fringe science books: The Geller Papers (1976), which was about the Israeli psychic Uri Geller; Death Encounters (1979), about the "white light" phenomenon reported by some people who have been resuscitated from the verge of death; and Breakthroughs: Advances in Science, Medicine and Technology (1980), about future developments in technology. He also wrote the psychological suspense novels Links (1978) and The Pleasuring of Rory Malone (1982). Following the 1979 accident at the Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station in Pennsylvania happened, he co-wrote the book The Silent Intruder: Surviving the Radiation Age (1981) with his brother, Michael Hudson. He used his background in radiation health technology to examine the benefits and dangers of radiation, including nuclear radiation from power plant accidents. In the 1980s, he learned his father was adopted, and that his birth name was Charles Hudson. Although he legally changed his name to Charles Hudson, he continued to publish under the name Charles Panati. In 1984 he wrote The Browser’s Book of Beginnings about the origins of everyday objects, which was turned into a weekly TV show called The Start of Something Big. The success of the book and show led to a series of "origins" books, including Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things (1987); Panati’s Parade of Fads, Follies and Manias: The Origins of Our Most Cherished Obsessions (1991); Sacred Origins of Profound Things: The Stories Behind the Rites and Rituals of the World’s Religions (1996); Sexy Origins of Intimate Things (1998); and Words To Live By: Origins of Common Wisdom Expressions (1999). He also wrote an "endings" book, Extraordinary Endings of Practically Everything and Everybody (1989).
Books
Links
Satire op een maoïstische commune eind jaren zestig door een voormalig lid dat door zijn homoseksualiteit en druggebruik uit de toon viel.
Words to live by
C. S. Lewis is a beloved writer and thinker and arguably the most important Christian intellectual of the twentieth century. His groundbreaking children's series The Chronicles of Narnia, lucid nonfiction titles such as Mere Christianity and The Problem of Pain, and thought-provoking fiction, including The Screwtape Letters and The Great Divorce, have become trusted companions for millions of readers. Here Lewis breathes new life into words and concepts that have dulled through time and familiarity, and his writings inevitably provoke deep thought and surprising revelations.Words to Live By contains an unprecedented selection of Lewis's writings, drawing from his most popular works, but also from his volumes of letters and his lesser-known essays and poems. His works are presented in accessible selections covering subjects from A to Z, including beauty, character, confession, doubt, family, holiness, and religion. Both a wonderful introduction to Lewis's thinking and a wise and insightful guide to key topics in the Christian life, these are truly words to live by.
Breakthroughs
BREAKTHROUGHS: The Historic Breakthrough by Marx, and the Further Breakthrough with the New Communism, A Basic Summary is “a distilled discussion of the theory, strategic orientation and objectives of the communist movement as this was developed from the time of Marx and with its further development and synthesis with the new communism” (as Bob Avakian, the architect of the new communism, describes this work in its preface). This work delves into the development of communist political theory with historical sweep and scientific analysis, highlighting what was so radically new and revolutionary about the theories first put forward by Marx and then examining the breakthroughs made by Avakian, whose new communism reflects a continuation of the Marxist tradition but at the same time represents a qualitative leap beyond, and in some important respects a break with, communist theory as it had been previously developed. This has resulted in a whole new framework for human emancipation, one defined by its emphasis on the critical importance of science and the consistent application of a scientific method. These theoretical breakthroughs are brought to life by Avakian, drawing on his ability to "break down" even very complex ideas and concepts in a popular and colloquial way that is accessible to a wide variety of readers. For anyone who yearns for a different world, one free of all forms of oppression and exploitation, where all humanity could truly flourish and where the planet could thrive, this thought-provoking work is essential reading.
Panati's extraordinary origins of everyday things
A compilation of many thoroughly researched facts about common objects in our lives today.