Mental Health Science

Explore the power of the underdog in Malcolm Gladwell's dazzling examination of success, motivation, and the role of adversity in shaping our lives, from the best-selling author of The Bomber Mafia. Three thousand years ago on a battlefield in ancient Palestine, a shepherd boy felled a mighty warrior with nothing more than a stone and a sling, and ever since then the names of David and Goliath have stood for battles between underdogs and giants. David's victory was improbable and miraculous. He shouldn't have won. Or should he have?

From the celebrated neurobiologist and primatologist, a landmark, genre-defining examination of human behavior, both good and bad, and an answer to the question: Why do we do the things we do? Sapolsky's storytelling concept is delightful but it also has a powerful intrinsic logic: He starts by looking at the factors that bear on a person's reaction in the precise moment a behavior occurs, and then hops back in time from there, in stages, ultimately ending up at the deep history of our species and its evolutionary legacy.

We all experience stuckness in our lives. We feel stuck in our relationships, career paths, body struggles, addiction issues, and more. Many of us know what we need to do to move forward—but find ourselves unable to take the leap to make it happen. And then we blame and shame ourselves, and stay in a loop of self-doubt that goes nowhere. The good news is you’re not lazy, crazy, or unmotivated. In this empowering and action-oriented guide, you’ll discover why we can’t think our way forward—and how to break through what’s holding us back.

We are living through one of the most anxious periods any of us can remember. Whether facing issues as public as a pandemic or as personal as having kids at home and fighting the urge to reach for the wine bottle every night, we are feeling overwhelmed and out of control. But in this timely book, Judson Brewer explains how to uproot anxiety at its source using brain-based techniques and small hacks accessible to anyone.

The Cult of Trump is an accessible and in-depth analysis of the president, showing that under the right circumstances, even sane, rational, well-adjusted people can be persuaded to believe the most outrageous ideas. Hassan’s audiobook is essential listening for anyone wanting to understand the Trump phenomenon and looking for a way forward.

Jonathan Haidt skillfully combines two genres-philosophical wisdom and scientific research-delighting the listener with surprising insights. He explains, for example, why we have such difficulty controlling ourselves and sticking to our plans; why no achievement brings lasting happiness, yet a few changes in your life can have profound effects, and why even confirmed atheists experience spiritual elevation.

Do you ever feel like you're too busy, too stressed, or just too distracted to concentrate and get work done? In Unlimited Memory you'll learn how the world's best memory masters get themselves to concentrate at will, anytime they want. When you can easily focus and concentrate on the task at hand and store and recall useful information, you can easily double your productivity and eliminate wasted time, stress, and mistakes at work. In this book you'll find all the tools, strategies, and techniques you need to improve your memory.

In Remember, neuroscientist and acclaimed novelist Lisa Genova delves into how memories are made and how we retrieve them. You'll learn whether forgotten memories are temporarily inaccessible or erased forever and why some memories are built to exist for only a few seconds (like a passcode) while others can last a lifetime (your wedding day). You'll come to appreciate the clear distinction between normal forgetting (where you parked your car) and forgetting due to Alzheimer's (that you own a car).

Alan Watts draws on the wisdom of Eastern philosophy and religion in this timeless and classic guide to living a more fulfilling life. His central insight is more relevant now than ever: when we spend all of our time worrying about the future and lamenting the past, we are unable to enjoy the present moment—the only one we are actually able to inhabit.

If you’ve ever been so pissed off that you did things that you regretted, or ruined your own day and some other people’s, too, this book is for you. Or if you feel angry every single day and it’s affecting your health and sleep and love of life. Or if you have very good reasons to be mad as hell, and you aren’t going to take it anymore. Or if you’ve repressed your anger all your life and now it’s all coming out at once.

The Origins and History of Consciousness draws on a full range of world mythology to show how individual consciousness undergoes the same archetypal stages of development as human consciousness as a whole. Erich Neumann was one of C. G. Jung's most creative students and a renowned practitioner of analytical psychology in his own right. In this influential book, Neumann shows how the stages begin and end with the symbol of the Uroboros, the tail-eating serpent.

Ever since a devastating nuclear war, humanity has lived on spaceships far above Earth's radioactive surface. Now, one hundred juvenile delinquents - considered expendable by society - are being sent on a dangerous mission: to recolonize the planet. It could be their second chance at life...or it could be a suicide mission. Clarke was arrested for treason, though she's haunted by the memory of what she really did. Wells, the chancellor's son, came to Earth for the girl he loves - but will she ever forgive him?

Anders Ericsson has made a career studying chess champions, violin virtuosos, star athletes, and memory mavens. Peak distills three decades of myth-shattering research into a powerful learning strategy that is fundamentally different from the way people traditionally think about acquiring new abilities. Whether you want to stand out at work, improve your athletic or musical performance, or help your child achieve academic goals, Ericsson’s revolutionary methods will show you how to improve at almost any skill that matters to you.

In the 21st century, humanity is reaching new heights of scientific understanding - and at the same time appears to be losing its mind. How can a species that developed vaccines for COVID-19 in less than a year produce so much fake news, medical quackery, and conspiracy theorizing? Pinker rejects the cynical cliché that humans are an irrational species - cavemen out of time saddled with biases, fallacies, and illusions.

Since its release in 1949, The Hero with a Thousand Faces has influenced millions of readers by combining the insights of modern psychology with Joseph Campbell's revolutionary understanding of comparative mythology. In this book, Campbell outlines the Hero's Journey, a universal motif of adventure and transformation that runs through virtually all of the world's mythic traditions. He also explores the Cosmogonic Cycle, the mythic pattern of world creation and destruction.

The coauthors of the New York Times best-selling Difficult Conversations take on the toughest topic of all: How we see ourselves. Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen have spent the past 15 years working with corporations, nonprofits, governments, and families to determine what helps us learn and what gets in our way. In Thanks for the Feedback, they explain why receiving feedback is so crucial yet so challenging. They blend the latest insights from neuroscience and psychology with practical, hard-headed advice.

In Neurodharma, the follow up to his classic Buddha’s Brain, New York Times best-selling author Rick Hanson, PhD, not only explores the new neuroscience of awakening, but also offers a bold yet plausible plan for reverse-engineering peak experiences, sense of oneness, and even enlightenment itself. And he does so with his trademark blend of solid science and warm encouragement, guiding you along this high-reaching path with good humor, accessible tools, and personal examples.

As the country's top forensic pathologist, Dr Richard Shepherd has spent a lifetime uncovering the secrets of the dead. When death is sudden or unexplained, it falls to Shepherd to establish the cause. Each post-mortem is a detective story in its own right - and Shepherd has performed over 23,000 of them. Through his skill, dedication and insight, Dr Shepherd solves the puzzle to answer our most pressing question: how did this person die?

Whenever we worry about what to eat, how to love, or simply how to be happy, we are worrying about how to lead a good life. No goal is more elusive. In How to Be a Stoic, philosopher Massimo Pigliucci offers Stoicism, the ancient philosophy that inspired the great emperor Marcus Aurelius, as the best way to attain it. Stoicism is a pragmatic philosophy that teaches us to act depending on what is within our control and separate things worth getting upset about from those that are not.

In Brain Rules for Baby, Dr. John Medina shares what the latest science says about how to raise smart and happy children from zero to five. This book is destined to revolutionize parenting. Just one of the surprises: The best way to get your children into the college of their choice? Teach them impulse control. Brain Rules for Baby bridges the gap between what scientists know and what parents practice.