The Denial of Death


Ernest Becker - 1973
    In bold contrast to the predominant Freudian school of thought, Becker tackles the problem of the vital lie -- man's refusal to acknowledge his own mortality. In doing so, he sheds new light on the nature of humanity and issues a call to life and its living that still resonates more than twenty years after its writing.

Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers


Robert M. Sapolsky - 1993
    Sapolsky's acclaimed and successful Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers features new chapters on how stress affects sleep and addiction, as well as new insights into anxiety and personality disorder and the impact of spirituality on managing stress.As Sapolsky explains, most of us do not lie awake at night worrying about whether we have leprosy or malaria. Instead, the diseases we fear--and the ones that plague us now--are illnesses brought on by the slow accumulation of damage, such as heart disease and cancer. When we worry or experience stress, our body turns on the same physiological responses that an animal's does, but we do not resolve conflict in the same way--through fighting or fleeing. Over time, this activation of a stress response makes us sick.

Newtown: An American Tragedy


Matthew Lysiak - 2013
    We remember the numbers: twenty children and six adults, murdered in a place of nurture and trust. We remember the names: teachers like Victoria Soto, who lost her life protecting her students. A shooter named Adam Lanza. And we remember the questions: outraged conjecture instantly monopolized the worldwide response to the tragedy—while the truth went missing. Here is the definitive journalistic account of Newtown, an essential examination of the facts—not only of that horrific day but the perfect storm of mental instability and obsession that preceded it and, in the aftermath of unspeakable heartbreak, the controversy that continues to play out on the national stage. Drawn from previously undisclosed emails, police reports, and in-depth interviews, Newtown: An American Tragedy breaks through a miasma of misinformation to present the comprehensive story that must be told—today—if we are to prevent another American tragedy in the days to come.

Childhood and Society


Erik H. Erikson - 1950
    Erikson underlie much of our understanding of human development. His insights into the interdependence of the individuals' growth and historical change, his now-famous concepts of identity, growth, and the life cycle, have changed the way we perceive ourselves and society. Widely read and cited, his works have won numerous awards including the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award.Combining the insights of clinical psychoanalysis with a new approach to cultural anthropology, Childhood and Society deals with the relationships between childhood training and cultural accomplishment, analyzing the infantile and the mature, the modern and the archaic elements in human motivation. It was hailed upon its first publication as "a rare and living combination of European and American thought in the human sciences" (Margaret Mead, The American Scholar). Translated into numerous foreign languages, it has gone on to become a classic in the study of the social significance of childhood.

The Science of Evil: On Empathy and the Origins of Cruelty


Simon Baron-Cohen - 2011
    In some cases, this absence can be dangerous, but in others it can simply mean a different way of seeing the world.In The Science of Evil Simon Baron-Cohen, an award-winning British researcher who has investigated psychology and autism for decades, develops a new brain-based theory of human cruelty. A true psychologist, however, he examines social and environmental factors that can erode empathy, including neglect and abuse.Based largely on Baron-Cohen's own research, The Science of Evil will change the way we understand and treat human cruelty.

Memoirs Aren't Fairytales: A Story of Addiction


Marni Mann - 2011
    My body was acting on its own, and my mind was empty, like all my memories had been erased. There was scenery behind my lids. Aqua-colored water and powdery sand that extended for miles. I was never going back to coke. I wanted more heroin. And I wanted it now."Leaving behind a nightmarish college experience, Nicole and her friend, Eric, escape their home of Bangor, Maine to start a new life in Boston. Fragile and scared, Nicole desperately seeks a new beginning to help erase her past. But there is something besides freedom waiting for her in the shadows—a drug that will make every day a nightmare.Heroin.With one taste, the love that once flowed through Nicole's veins turns into cravings. Tracks mark the passing of time, and heroin's grip gets tighter. It holds her hand through deaths and prostitution, but her addiction keeps her in the darkness. When her family tries to strike a match to help light her way, Nicole must choose between a life she can hardly remember, or a love for heroin she'll never forget.

Tampa


Alissa Nutting - 2013
    In slaking her sexual thirst, Celeste Price is remorseless and deviously free of hesitation, a monstress of pure motivation. She deceives everyone, is close to no one, and cares little for anything but her pleasure.

The CBS Murders: A True Account of Greed and Violence in New York's Diamond District


Richard Hammer - 1987
      On a warm spring evening in 1982, thirty-seven-year-old accountant Margaret Barbera left work in New York City and walked to the West Side parking lot where she kept her BMW. Finding the lock on the driver’s side door jammed, she went to the passenger’s side and inserted her key. A man leaned through the open window of a van parked in the next spot, pressed a silenced pistol to the back of Margaret’s head, and fired. She was dead before she hit the pavement.   It was a professional hit, meticulously planned—but the killer didn’t expect three employees of the nearby CBS television studios to stumble onto the scene of the crime. “You didn’t see nothin’, did you?” he demanded, before shooting the first eyewitness in the head. After chasing down and executing the other two men, the murderer sped out of the parking lot with Margaret’s lifeless body in the back of his van.   Thirty minutes later, the first detectives arrived on the scene. Veterans of Midtown North, a sprawling precinct stretching from the exclusive shops of Fifth Avenue to the flophouses of Hell’s Kitchen, they thought they’d seen it all. But a bloodbath in the heart of Manhattan was a shocking new level of depravity, and the investigation would unfold under intense media coverage. Setting out on the trail of an assassin, the NYPD uncovered one of the most diabolical criminal conspiracies in the city’s history.   Richard Hammer’s blow-by-blow account of “the CBS Murders” is a thrilling tale of greed, violence, and betrayal, and a fascinating portrait of how a big-city police department solved the toughest of cases.

One Day University Presents: Positive Psychology: The Science of Happiness


One Day University - 2010
    He is also the Head Teaching Fellow for the most popular course at Harvard, “Positive Psychology,” which is taken by more than 1,000 students per semester and led by Professor Tal Ben-Shahar.  Shawn received his B.A. in English from Harvard and a Master’s from Harvard Divinity School in Christian and Buddhist Ethics. Part of his interest in positive psychology stems from a troubling fact: studies have shown that many of Harvard’s undergraduates suffer from depression at some point in their college careers. One Day University is a unique educational experience  that brings intellectuals together to learn from top rated professors at Yale, Harvard, Stanford, Columbia and other prestigious universities. Chosen for their excellent teaching abilities as rated by their students, these great thinkers represent a wide variety of academic disciplines and share their knowledge in 60 minute, highly entertaining lectures. Offering the ability to learn the highlights of academic thought in world affairs, politics, history, science, art, and more; One Day University is a way to truly enjoy the thrill of learning without the pressures of tests and the high price tag of college tuition. Once reserved only for students who could attend the lectures in New York and other major cities, One Day University courses are now available to everyone from the comfort of their own homes in Kindle format.

Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children from Sex


Judith Levine - 2002
    The author-a thoughtful and persuasive journalist and essayist-examines the consequences of "abstinence" only education and its concomitant association of sex with disease, and the persistent denial of pleasure. She notes the trend toward pathologizing young children's eroticized play and argues that Americans should rethink the boundaries we draw in protecting our children from sex. This powerful and illuminating work was nominated for the 2003 Los Angeles Times Book Prize.

This Crazy Thing Called Love: The Golden World and Fatal Marriage of Ann and Billy Woodward


Susan Braudy - 1992
    While she was cleared by a grand jury, which believed her story that she had mistaken Billy for a prowler who had been recently breaking into neighboring houses, New York society was convinced that she had deliberately murdered Billy and that her formidable mother-in-law, Elsie Woodward, had covered up the crime to prevent further scandal to the socially prominent family. The incident became fiction in Truman Capote's malicious 1975 Esquire story, leading to Ann's suicide, and later was the subject of Dominick Dunne's The Two Mrs. Grenvilles. Now, after years of research, Braudy reveals the truth behind the legend. Tracing Ann's life from her difficult Kansas childhood through her early years as a model and aspiring actress to her stormy marriage to Billy Woodward and the sad years of her social exile after his death, Braudy shows how Ann, a victim of cruel gossip and class snobbery, could not have deliberately killed Billy.

Five Minds for the Future


Howard Gardner - 2005
    The only thing that's certain is that new challenges and opportunities will emerge that are virtually unimaginable today. How can we know which skills will be required to succeed?In Five Minds for the Future, bestselling author Howard Gardner shows how we will each need to master "five minds" that the fast-paced future will demand:· The disciplined mind, to learn at least one profession, as well as the major thinking (science, math, history, etc.) behind it· The synthesizing mind, to organize the massive amounts of information and communicate effectively to others· The creating mind, to revel in unasked questions—and uncover new phenomena and insightful apt answers· The respectful mind, to appreciate the differences between human beings - and understand and work with all persons· The ethical mind, to fulfill one's responsibilities as both a worker and a citizenWithout these "minds," we risk being overwhelmed by information, unable to succeed in the workplace, and incapable of the judgment needed to thrive both personally and professionally.Complete with a substantial new introduction, Five Minds for the Future provides valuable tools for those looking ahead to the next generation of leaders - and for all of us striving to excel in a complex world.Howard Gardner—cited by Foreign Policy magazine as one of the one hundred most influential public intellectuals in the world, and a MacArthur Fellowship recipient—is the Hobbs Professor of Cognition and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

The Social Animal


Elliot Aronson - 1972
    Through vivid narrative, lively presentations of important research, and intriguing examples, Elliot Aronson probes the patterns and motives of human behavior, covering such diverse topics as terrorism, conformity, obedience, politics, race relations, advertising, war, interpersonal attraction, and the power of religious cults.

Creatures of a Day: And Other Tales of Psychotherapy


Irvin D. Yalom - 2015
    Yalom describes his patients' struggles -- as well as his own -- to come to terms with the two great challenges of existence: how to have a meaningful life yet reckon with its inevitable end. We meet a nurse who must stifle the pain of losing her son in order to comfort her patients' pains, a newly minted psychologist whose studies damage her treasured memories of a lost friend, and a man whose rejection of psychological inquiry forces even Yalom himself into a crisis of confidence. Creatures of a Day is a radically honest statement about the difficulties of human life, but also a celebration of some of the finest fruits -- love, family, friendship -- it can offer. Marcus Aurelius has written that "we are all creatures of a day." With Yalom as our guide, we will find the means to make our own day not only bearable, but also meaningful and joyful.

I Hate You, Don't Leave Me: Understanding the Borderline Personality


Jerold J. Kreisman - 1989
    They can be euphoric one moment, despairing and depressed the next. There are an estimated 10 million sufferers of BPD living in America today—each displaying remarkably similar symptoms: ● a shaky sense of identity ● sudden violent outbursts ● oversensitivity to real or imagined rejection ● brief, turbulent love affairs ● frequent periods of intense depression ● eating disorders, drug abuse, and other self-destructive tendencies ● an irrational fear of abandonment and an inability to be alone For years BPD was difficult to describe, diagnose, and treat. But now, for the first time, Dr. Jerold J. Kreisman and health writer Hal Straus offer much-needed professional advice, helping victims and their families to understand and cope with this troubling,shockingly widespread affliction.