Personal Science

In her first book, How to Do Nothing, Jenny Odell wrote about the importance of disconnecting from the “attention economy” to spend time in quiet contemplation. But how can we reclaim our time? In order to answer this seemingly simple question, Odell took a deep dive into the fundamental structure of our society and found that the clock we live by was built for profit, not people. This is why our lives, even in leisure, have come to seem like a series of moments to be bought, sold, and processed ever more efficiently.

Comment accepter les événements de la vie avec sérénité ? Comment éviter de s'inquiéter des choses qui sont hors de notre contrôle ? Comment atteindre une vie heureuse, juste et bonne ? Pour répondre à ces questions, Cyrus North s'appuie sur une philosophie millénaire, le stoïcisme, et sur les découvertes les plus récentes sur le fonctionnement de nos émotions. Avec un ton plein d'humour, il nous propose son code pour faire le tri dans notre vie, réorganiser nos priorités et être tout simplement plus heureux.

Anna Prushinskaya explores the deep life shifts of pregnancy, birth and motherhood in the United States, a world away from the author's Soviet homeland. Drawing from inspirations as various as midwife Ina May Gaskin, writer and activist Alice Walker, and frontierswoman Caroline Henderson, Prushinskaya captures the inherent togetherness of motherhood alongside its accompanying estrangement. She plumbs the deeper waters of compassion, memory and identity, as well as the humorous streams of motherhood as they run up against the realities of work and the ever-present eye of social media.

In The Gardener and the Carpenter, pioneering developmental psychologist and philosopher Alison Gopnik argues that the familiar 21st-century picture of parents and children is profoundly wrong - it's not just based on bad science, it's bad for kids and parents, too. Drawing on the study of human evolution and her own cutting-edge scientific research into how children learn, Gopnik shows that although caring for children is profoundly important, it is not a matter of shaping them to turn out a particular way.

Adrienne Rich's influential and landmark investigation concerns both the experience and the institution of motherhood. The experience is her own - as a woman, a poet, a feminist, and a mother - but it is an experience determined by the institution, imposed on all women everywhere. She draws on personal materials, history, research, and literature to create a document of universal importance.

Elation, mood swings, sleeplessness, and obsession - these are the tell-tale signs of someone in the throes of romantic passion. In this revealing new book, renowned anthropologist Helen Fisher explains why this experience - which cuts across time, geography, and gender - is a force as powerful as the need for food or sleep.

For male listeners, author and professional dating coach Alan Roger Currie goes into detail explaining the difference in the appeal of an Alpha male versus a Beta male in the eyes of women and how each type of man satisfies different needs for women.

Evan Stark, founder of one of America's first battered women's shelters, shows how "domestic violence" is neither primarily domestic nor necessarily violent, but a pattern of controlling behaviors more akin to terrorism and hostage-taking. Drawing on court records, interviews, and FBI statistics, Stark details coercive strategies that men use to deny women their very personhood, from "beeper games" to food logs to micromanaging dress, speech, sexual activity, and work.

De Brevitate Vitae (frequently referred to as On the Shortness of Life in English) is a moral essay written by Seneca the Younger, a Roman Stoic philosopher, to his father-in-law Paulinus. The philosopher brings up many Stoic principles on the nature of time, namely that men waste much of it in meaningless pursuits. According to the essay, nature gives man enough time to do what is really important and the individual must allot it properly.

In a world of iPhones and connectivity to social media and email, we are all in constant connection with one another. Then why are so many people feeling burned out, distant from colleagues, and abandoned by family and friends? In this new book from the best-selling author of Running with the Mind of Meditation, the Sakyong uses the basic principles of the Shambhala tradition - meditation and a sincere belief in the inherent wisdom, compassion, and courage of all beings - to help listeners to listen and speak more mindfully.

National leader Stacey Abrams has written the guide to harnessing the strengths of being an outsider and succeeding anyway. Leadership is hard. Convincing others - and yourself - that you are capable of taking charge and achieving more requires insight and courage. Lead from the Outside is the handbook for outsiders, written with an eye toward the challenges that hinder women, people of color, the working class, members of the LGBTQ community, and millennials ready to make change.

Currie is well-known as the very first professional dating coach in what is now known as the "Manosphere" to encourage single heterosexual men to use upfront, specific, and straightforwardly honest verbal communication methods (otherwise known informally as "direct verbal game") as a means of quickly identifying women who possess sexually duplicitous tendencies and/or highly manipulative and materialistic desires with men.

Do you wonder sometimes how and why you’re here? What ‘here‘ even is, and who ‘You‘ are in the greater scheme of things? If these questions resonate with you – then this is THE book that finally explains it all. Physician and Scientist, Dr. Howard Eisenberg, is a long-time explorer of the various realms of consciousness. In this multiple awards-winning book, he shares his recent discoveries of our dream-like entrapment and liberation by ‘Awakening’ to the underlying Truth.

Do you want to overcome every obstacle thrown in your way to live a happier and meaningful life? You need to become a master of your mind. Here’s how you can do it. For millennia, Stoicism has cleared a path for practitioners through the maze of difficulties and distractions that make living such a challenge. You may be new to it as a concept, or familiar with its tenets.

Do you know anyone who's truly living The Good Life? Traditionally, philosophers and psychologists have thought of the Good Life in terms of happiness or meaning, or some combination of both. But, if it’s really that simple, if all you need is more happiness or meaning to get to the Good Life, why aren’t more of us achieving that truly “good” life? You’ve hit all the traditional markers, jumped on the happiness train, committed to a gratitude practice, sought purpose in your work, and yet The Good Life you’re seeking, is still out of reach.

In a world overflowing with information, how can we adapt our learning methods to thrive? Dave Cormier, a pioneering figure in digital education, presents a thought-provoking manifesto in Learning in a Time of Abundance. A leading voice in digital learning, Cormier offers a fresh perspective on how we can face the uncertainty of a world where our challenges don't have clear answers amid an overwhelming digital landscape.

At some point over the course of the average American woman's life, she will find herself alone, whether she is divorced, widowed, single, or in a loveless, isolating relationship. And when that time comes, it is likely that she will be at a loss as to how to handle it. As a society, we have an unspoken but omnipresent belief that a woman alone is an outcast, inherently flawed in some way. In this invigorating, supportive audiobook, psychotherapist Florence Falk aims to take the fear, doubt, confusion, and helplessness out of being a woman alone.

From terror attacks to the War on Terror, bursting real-estate bubbles to crystal meth epidemics, sexual predators to poisonous toys from China, our list of fears seems to be exploding. And yet, we are the safest and healthiest humans in history. Irrational fear is running amok, and often with tragic results. In the months after 9/11, when people decided to drive instead of fly - believing they were avoiding risk - road deaths rose by 1,595. Those lives were lost to fear.

Maternal instinct - the all-consuming, utterly selfless love that mothers lavish on their children - has long been assumed to be an innate, indeed defining element of a woman's nature. But is it? In this provocative, groundbreaking audiobook, renowned anthropologist (and mother) Sarah Blaffer Hrdy shares a radical new vision of motherhood and its crucial role in human evolution. Hrdy strips away stereotypes and gender-biased myths to demonstrate that traditional views of maternal behavior are essentially wishful thinking codified as objective observation.

Young Magdalen and Jesus, brimming with youthful charm and arrogance, find each other and fall in love, forging a bond that is stronger than death. Their pleasure is overshadowed by a brilliant but unbalanced druid who knows a perilous secret about Maeve's past. The prequel to The Passion of Mary Magdalen.