Brain Fuel: 199 Mind-Expanding Inquiries into the Science of Everyday Life


Joe Schwarcz - 2008
    Joe – as he is affectionately known to millions of readers, listeners, viewers, and students – brings his magic formula to Doubleday Canada with Brain Fuel.As with Dr. Joe’s previous best-selling books, Brain Fuel informs and entertains on a wild assortment of science-based topics. But this is not "science trivia." If you are looking for serious scientific discussions, you’ll find them here. If you are looking for practical consumer information, that’s here too. If you are searching for ways to stimulate interest in science, look no further, Mom. And if you are simply wondering why the birth of Prince Leopold was so different from Queen Victoria's previous seven; or why an iron rod that went through a man's head is now on display in a museum in Boston; or why white chocolate has such a short shelf life; or why eggs terrified Alfred Hitchcock – and what all of this means for the rest of us, and why – then bingo.

The Maestro Myth: Great Conductors in Pursuit of Power


Norman Lebrecht - 1991
    And in portraying the politics and inflated economics surrounding the podiums of today's international classical music scene, the author investigates the awesome power of superagents, the obstacles faced by blacks, women, and gays, and the mounting crisis in a profession where genuine talent grows ever scarcer.

The Beauty of Spiritual Language


Jack W. Hayford - 1992
    And a large majority of believers are unclear about what spiritual language really means. This is a balanced, biblical approach for anyone wanting to make an honest inquiry into the nature of speaking in tongues. Hayford debunks common myths surrounding the practice of tongues and shares with readers the beauty and the order of spiritual language that he has discovered during his times of private communion with God.

Jewish Jocks: An Unorthodox Hall of Fame


Franklin Foer - 2012
    Featuring work by today’s preeminent writers, these essays explore significant Jewish athletes, coaches, broadcasters, trainers, and even team owners (in the finite universe of Jewish Jocks, they count!).Contributors include some of today’s most celebrated writers covering a vast assortment of topics, including David Remnick on the biggest mouth in sports, Howard Cosell; Jonathan Safran Foer on the prodigious and pugnacious Bobby Fischer; Man Booker Prize–winner Howard Jacobson writing elegantly on Marty Reisman, America’s greatest ping-pong player and the sport’s ultimate showman. Deborah Lipstadt examines the continuing legacy of the Munich Massacre, the fortieth anniversary of which coincided with the 2012 London Olympics. Jane Leavy reveals why Sandy Koufax agreed to attend her daughter’s bat mitzvah. And we learn how Don Lerman single-handedly thrust competitive eating into the public eye with three pounds of butter and 120 jalapeño peppers. These essays are supplemented by a cover design and illustrations throughout by Mark Ulriksen. From settlement houses to stadiums and everywhere in between, JEWISH JOCKS features men and women who do not always fit the standard athletic mold. Rather, they utilized talents long prized by a people of the book (and a people of commerce) to game these games to their advantage, in turn forcing the rest of the world to either copy their methods—or be left in their dust.

Do You QuantumThink?: New Thinking That Will Rock Your World


Dianne Collins - 2011
    We're all looking for new ways of thinking that can bring about real solutions to modern problems, from the pursuit of inner serenity to solving world conflicts. In Do You QuantumThink? author Dianne Collins shares her ingenious discovery that reveals a critical missing link to make sense of our changing times. Her discovery provides us with the understanding and methodology to rise above problems of today by laying the foundation for an entirely new way to think.Part science, part philosophy, part spirituality, Do You QuantumThink? draws on a wide spectrum of sources, from cutting edge innovations in the sciences to the insights of the world's greatest spiritual leaders. This book will make you laugh, free you from limiting ideas, and introduce you to the most advanced principles and practical methods for living. Do You QuantumThink? will rock your world in the best of ways as you experience one revelation after another.

Introducing philosophy


Open University - 2016
    This 8-hour free course introduced the study of philosophy and the methods employed by The Open University in teaching philosophy.

Banksy's Bristol: Home Sweet Home


Steve Wright - 2007
    The images were taken when Banksy joined Bristol's radical football team The Easton Cowboys on a tour of Mexico to play football against the Zapatista freedom fighters. The new edition also contains sections on the Banksy vs Bristol Museum show, Exit Through The Gift Shop, The Tesco Value Petrol Bomb, an interview with John Nation and more. The book is a celebration of Banksy's street art in his home city of Bristol and places him in the context of 3D, John Nation from the Barton Hill Youth Club, Inkie, Nick Walker and the other artists and musicians who were instrumental in linking Bristol to the original New York hip-hop scene. It is the most revealing account of Banksy's formative years and contains more than one hundred images of his Bristol art, as well as pictures of Banksy at work, many of which have never been published before. Steve Wright, traces Banksy's roots back to the rave culture of the Nineties and draws a rounded picture of an artist who is most famous for being anonymous.

The New Human Revolution, Volume 3 (The New Human Revolution, #3)


Daisaku Ikeda - 1996
    

The Man with the Electrified Brain


Simon Winchester - 2013
    It was inside, inside my head, where all had become so wretchedly different. I had the night before been incontrovertibly a man of stable mood, of calm, of good cheer and unforced bonhomie. Now I had become changed, with dreadful suddenness, into another being altogether.”Simon Winchester has never shied away from big, even enormous, topics—as evidenced by his bestselling biography of the Atlantic Ocean, his account of the Krakatoa volcanic eruption, and his wildly popular “The Professor and the Madman,” about the making of the Oxford English Dictionary. In his Byliner Original “The Man with the Electrified Brain,” he takes on arguably his most daunting subject yet: his own flirtation with madness, and one of nature’s greatest and most enduring mysteries, the human brain. As a geology student in his second year at Oxford, Winchester was known as a young man of even temper and keen intellect, until one June morning when he woke to find himself “changed with dreadful suddenness into another being altogether,” his normal life “slumped into chasm” and “folded in the dirt.” For a period of nine days, he lived in immobilizing fear. Everyday items—familiar paintings, a pile of books, his own robe hanging from a hook—became objects of horror; the world lost color, purpose, all sense and safety. When the episode finally passed, he returned to normal, presuming that what had happened to him was a fluke. It wasn’t. The episode repeated itself at unpredictable and dangerous intervals for four years—always lasting for nine days—and very nearly caused the author’s death while he was on an expedition in the Arctic. What was wrong with him? Where could he find help? Would he spend the rest of his life anticipating the return of these mental blackouts? With the urgency of a whodunit, Winchester describes the coming and going of these terrifying dissociative states and the chance encounter that led to the controversial treatment of electroconvulsive therapy, which may or may not have cured him once and for all. Written by a consummate storyteller, “The Man with the Electrified Brain” locates that finest of lines between sanity and insanity and is Winchester’s most riveting and deeply personal work yet.

The Best Creative Nonfiction, Vol. 1


Lee Gutkind - 2007
    Monica Wojcik's "The w00t Files," for the chic geek crowd, comes directly from John McPhee's famous Literature of Fact workshop at Princeton, a launching pad for famous young writers. Daniel Nestor, of McSweeney's and Bookslut, explains James Frey, while the very overweight Michael Rosenwald becomes a Popular Science nearly nude centerfold in a quest for knowledge about high-tech diagnostics.

Strange Crime


Portable Press - 2018
    Dumb crooks, celebrities gone bad, unsolved mysteries, odd laws, and more—Strange Crime has plenty of stories that will make you ask yourself, “What could they possibly have been thinking?” This easily portable paperback book is ideal for readers on the go. Take it to school, to work, to jury duty!

Light in the Darkness: Black Holes, the Universe, and Us


Heino Falcke - 2020
    A man of faith ordained in the Protestant tradition, Heino Falcke wrestles with the ways in which black holes force us to confront the boundary where human life ends and the celestial begins. He also ponders why black holes are difficult for most of us to understand—comparing it to our inability to envisage our own inevitable death.Black holes develop in outer space when a massive star dies, and its matter is condensed. That extreme amount of mass contained in a small space generates a gigantic amount of gravitational force, allowing the black hole to suck up everything that comes near, including light. These astronomical wonders are the subject of our greatest scientific and philosophical theorizing—the journey to a black hole would be the journey to the end of time itself. In this way, Falcke regards them as the most exquisite representations of fear, death . . . and, surprisingly, the divine.Empirical and profound, A Light in the Darkness is the first work to examine both the physical nature and spiritual meaning of black holes, those astrophysical mysteries Falcke, calls “the epitome of merciless destruction.”

The Science of Human Nature: A Psychology for Beginners


William Henry Pyle - 1917
    You can not study human nature from a book, you must study yourself and your neighbors. This book may help you to know what to look for and to understand what you find, but it can do little more than this. It is true, this text gives you many facts learned by psychologists, but you must verify the statements, or at least see their significance to you, or they will be of no worth to you. However, the facts considered here, properly understood and assimilated, ought to prove of great value to you. But perhaps of greater value will be the psychological frame of mind or attitude which you should acquire. The psychological attitude is that of seeking to find and understand the causes of human action, and the causes, consequences, and significance of the processes of the human mind. If your first course in psychology teaches you to look for these things, gives you some skill in finding them and in using the knowledge after you have it, your study should be quite worth while.

Floating Feathers: A Doctor's Harrowing Experience as a Patient Within Conventional Medicine --- and an Impassioned Call for the Future of Care in America


Ross I.S. Zbar - 2020
    Ross I.S. Zbar spent his career as a plastic surgeon, in the US as well as abroad in developing countries, mending disease- and trauma-related deformities--and he was never hesitant to make his voice heard as an advocate for better patient care.Then, on a warm December day in 2018, Ross suffered a trauma that nearly took his life, putting him into the hands of his profession in a way he never anticipated. While his life was ultimately saved, his journey to wellness within the conventional medical establishment--from three weeks in the ICU to in-patient rehab--was nothing short of nightmarish. Frequently sedated and physically restrained, he was inundated with mental, emotional, and sensory evidence of an industry gone haywire, experiencing clearly from the patient side what he had only touched on as an advocate.Vowing to be an even stronger voice for change, Ross used the power of his mind to recover faster than any of his doctors predicted. Floating Feathers not only recounts his compelling story but elucidates a thoughtful and authoritative critical call to the members of his beloved profession for a massive overhaul."We possess the technology and the brilliant minds to motivate this level of sweeping change so desperately required," he says. "We simply need to champion it as a non-negotiable priority."This profoundly personal yet overarchingly relative book endeavors to be a vital first step toward that goal.

The Controlled Demolition of the American Empire


Jeff Berwick - 2020
    It did not have to end this way, but when the most devious and ruthless members of a society are tasked with running the system, the outcome can hardly be in dispute. All empires fall, but it is the reason they eventually come apart that is surprisingly similar. The fate of America will not be any different. Like a 47-story steel and concrete building that is covertly slated for demolition, the American Empire was built on a rotten foundation and has been targeted for destruction. The core of the building has been pre-weakened over the decades through government policies, had its support columns identified and rigged with financial detonators, watched society be transformed into a culture incapable of recognizing their impending doom to sound the alarm, and as the plunger is pushed down and the destruction begins, many people will have no idea of what is coming their way until it is too late. Once the debris is cleared away there is hope that a new civilization can be built, but will they make the same mistakes, or can they learn from the past and chart a different course?