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For Immediate Release
Contact:
Nancy MacDonald
Phone: 207-829-4884
Email: nancy@authorbytes.com

Orthopedic Surgeon Shows There’s More Than One Way
To Heal The World

If a picture is worth a thousand words consider the value of 234 breathtaking full-color photographs, each a thread in the expanding tapestry of human connectedness. At the above conversion rate it might take hundreds of thousands of words to do justice to One World: A View of 50 Countries, Michael Lewis M.D.’s new coffee-table exploration of shared humanity. Fortunately, it only takes six: This book will change your consciousness.

Four years ago, at his own one-man show in Chicago, Dr. Lewis, to his great surprise, sold fifty of his photos. “It’s one thing for someone to say ‘nice photo, I really like it’,” says Lewis. “It’s another thing to buy it. But that’s exactly what people were doing, and they started telling me the photos helped change the way they viewed the world. That’s a lot to ask of a photo.” Lewis, a noted Chicago surgeon and former orthopedic consultant to The Chicago Bulls and the Chicago White Sox, decided to publish them in a book. In less than four months over a thousand copies have been sold. “It’s turning into a bit of a phenomenon,” adds Lewis with a smile. “For all the negative images we’re bombarded with people want to be reminded that the world is still filled with beauty, and that there is dignity in diversity.”

Harmony, Serenity, Simplicity and a Few Cracks by Groucho Marx
One of the added charms of viewing Lewis’ photos in book form, (besides the exquisite reproduction) is the care the good doctor has taken in amplifying his visual messages with smartly-chosen quotes. “I’ve always loved quotations,” he explains. “I started ‘saving’ them in high school.” For example, he amplifies a photo of Landmine victims in Cambodia with a quote from Bob Dylan: Be kind, because everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle. One World: A View of 50 Countries offers similar wisdom from the likes of Winston Churchill, Rumi, Marcel Proust, and George Will, whose quote Lewis uses to accompany his image of Wrigley field; “The only thing I remember about my wedding day in 1967 is that the Cubs lost a double header.”

You don’t have to be from Chicago, of course, to love this book. Lewis’ magnificent photos range from phenomenal landscapes in Vietnam to a lovingly-tended 50’s vintage Chevy in Havana. Whether a sunset over the forests of Botswana or a deep sea wonderland under the Red Sea, the photos manage to communicate—and get you to feel—the awe of living together on this earth that we share.

Complementing the book is Lewis’ full-featured website, www.oneworldthebook.com, which seeks to expand the experience of community with a series of engrossing multi-media travelogues written and narrated by Dr. Lewis. The site also makes available free podcasts, additional photography and the chance for visitors to purchase One World merchandise and win free copies of the book. “The theme of the site is ‘Look. Imagine. Connect.’”, says Lewis of the site. “There’s even a place where visitors can share their own One World thoughts and photographs.”

All Profits to Help Fight Cataracts
As a concrete manifestation of his interest in opening eyes, all profits from One World: A View Of 50 Countries— and all sales of merchandise on the site—are donated to the Himalayan Cataract Project which has restored sight to more than 200,000 patients in Tibet, Nepal, India, Pakistan, Bhutan, Sikkim and Ghana.

“The book is all about vision,” says Lewis. “It gets people to see things figuratively. The profits enable us to allow our fellow human beings to see again, literally.”