The Pleasures & Sorrows of Work
Transforma
The Zander’s insightful and unique take on the art of possibility seeks to uncover the untapped riches of the correct use of our imagination. This new look at understanding creativity, the uprooting of dead images and the revision of outdated assumptions in order to eliminate self-imposed limitations and experience one’s own soulful existence. These real life anecdotes and practical applications provide the reader with the knowledge and tools to experiment with the dynamic choice of possibility in our own lives.
How We Decide
Each of us makes thousands of decisions a day; so many, in fact, that we make most of them without much forethought or rational reflection. But, as Jonah Lehrer proves in this persuasive book, making “rational decisions” about even the most consequential matters isn’t always the wisest strategy. Drawing on cutting-edge studies, he describes how our minds evaluate incoming data and why the optimal mix of feeling and reason depends on the problem at hand. Packed with surprises, How We Decide brims with counterintuitive advice: New Yorker contributor Lehrer argues, for instance, that it’s best to emotionally “feel out” major purchases such as buying a house before making the jump. Stimulating reading for fans of Malcolm Gladwell.
The Survivors Club: The Secrets and Science That Could Save Your Life
The best answers available to one of life’s core questions: How can I survive danger?
Even when we’re in the safest of situations, we humans worry and wonder about survival. Whether we’re imagining how we would escape from a burning building or plane; avoid a deadly wild animal attack; or stay alive as a psychopath’s hostage, we all know that surviving is the bottom line. Los Angeles Times journalist Ben Sherwood traveled the world to learn the secrets that helped real men and women stay alive in moments of extreme physical crisis. The stories are gripping; the lessons could be life-saving.
Animals Make Us Human: Creating the Best Life for Animals
A specially gifted “animal translator” shares fascinating insights and observations on how we can treat other creatures in ways that are more truly humane.
The culmination of more than thirty years of work with other species, Temple Grandin’s Animals Make Us Human delivers on the assertions of both its title and subtitle. Drawing on keen, hard-won observations, the author of the bestselling Animals in Translation and Thinking in Pictures draws on her experiences as an autistic woman to describe core emotion systems shared by humans and other creatures: a need to seek; a sense of rage, fear, and panic; feelings of lust; an urge to nurture; and an ability to play. Her detailed examples encompass much of the animal kingdom, including dogs, cats, horses, cows, pigs, poultry, wild creatures, and captives of zoos. An engaging nature book that spells out how we can make animals happy.
Shakespear
“The premise of this book is simple and direct: Shakespeare makes modern culture and that modern culture makes Shakespeare.” Award-winning Shakespeare scholar Marjorie Garber demonstrates her thesis with an often astonishing array of contemporary appropriations, including Stratford Bard influenced rock lyrics, advertisement campaigns, and management primers as well as more respectable plays, novels, and ballets. Her trenchant examination of ten major Shakespearean dramas shows how each has been mined not only for its archetypal messages, but also reshaped to reflect more modern preoccupations.
Dancing in the Dark: A Cultural History of the Great Depression
Depressions are, by very definition, depressing; but as Morris Dickstein's dexterous history shows, that is not always completely so. Dancing in the Dark reminded me that the Great Depression produced an overflowing trove of buoyant popular culture: from Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers elegance to screwball comedy zaniness. Nor was this all escapism. Dickstein shows us that this "New Deal in Entertainment" encompassed a varied stimulus package of social consciousness, individualism, and sheer speed and energy; a mixed bag of Steinbeck, Agee, Ellington, and, yes, Busby Berkeley. Reading this ultimately exhilarating history gave me a renewed appreciation of how rich the arts can be in impoverished times. It also convinced me that Norman Mailer was right when he called its author "one of our best and most distinguished critics."
The Glass Castle
Join Jeannette Walls in the story of her upbringing. Living as almost vagabonds, her family was always on the run. Follow her family across the USA while her parents somehow make life seem like a game...for awhile that is. At 3 years old, Jeannette finds herself on fire as she was cooking herself hotdogs, as an adult on the way to a dinner party, she sees her mother rummaging through a garbage can, each chapter will have you wondering what could possibly come next. This story will have you locked in and won't let up until it's over. It's amazing how strong people can really be and how the lives that each of us lead can be so much deeper than we imagine. If you're looking for a book that you will not be able to put down, this is it.
The Third Chapter: Passion, Risk, and Adventure in the 25 Years After 50
Nowadays, variations on “midlife is not the end of life” are trumpeted in scores of self-help books, televisions, and movies. Sociologist Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot’s new book distinguishes itself from those feel-good genres with its nuanced blend of insightful professional observations and real-life stories of older Americans who achieved “third chapter” life transformations. To formulate her encouraging conclusions, the author draws on extended interviews with scores of men and women who dared to navigate a new way.
