Personal Science

Once upon a time Martians and Venusians met, fell in love, and had happy relationships together because they respected and accepted their differences. Then they came to Earth and amnesia set in: They forgot they were from different planets.

In this captivating book, neuroscientist Shane O'Mara invites us to marvel at the benefits walking confers on our bodies and brains, and to appreciate the advantages of this uniquely human skill. From walking's evolutionary origins, traced back millions of years to life forms on the ocean floor, to new findings from cutting-edge research, he reveals how the brain and nervous system give us the ability to balance, weave through a crowded city, and run our "inner GPS" system.

You can learn everything you can about how to make women want you and still fail to master the inner game of being a man who naturally attracts women. Some guys even study all kinds of seduction secrets on attracting women, yet they only end up in terrible relationships with low-quality women. Most guys simply don't understand how women think. If you asked the average guy what women want, he may say things like confidence, money, or ridiculous good looks, but all of these things are just the tip of the iceberg.

Messy: The Power of Disorder to Transform Our Lives celebrates the benefits that messiness has in our lives: why it’s important, why we resist it, and why we should embrace it instead. Using research from neuroscience, psychology, social science, as well as captivating examples of real people doing extraordinary things, Tim Harford explains that the human qualities we value – creativity, responsiveness, resilience – are integral to the disorder, confusion, and disarray that produce them.

A generation gap has emerged between parents and their girls. Even in this age of helicopter parenting, the mothers and fathers of tomorrow's women have little idea what their daughters are up to sexually or how they feel about it. Drawing on in-depth interviews with over 70 young women and a wide range of psychologists, academics, and experts, renowned journalist Peggy Orenstein goes where most others fear to tread, pulling back the curtain on the hidden truths, hard lessons, and important possibilities of girls' sex lives in the modern world.

If you're the parent of a "smart but scattered" teen, trying to help him or her grow into a self-sufficient, responsible adult may feel like a never-ending battle. Now you have an alternative to micromanaging, cajoling, or ineffective punishments. This positive guide provides a science-based program for promoting teens' independence by building their executive skills - the fundamental brain-based abilities needed to get organized, stay focused, and control impulses and emotions.

When Stephanie Kiser moves to New York City after college to pursue a career in writing, she quickly learns that her entry-level salary won't cover the cost of living. But there is one in-demand job that pays enough to allow Stephanie to stay in the city: nannying for the 1%. Desperate to escape the poverty of her own childhood, Stephanie falls into a job that hijacks her life for the next seven years: a glorified personal assistant to toddlers on Manhattan's Upper East Side.

In her extraordinary best seller, Adrian Nicole LeBlanc immerses listeners in the intricacies of the ghetto, revealing the true sagas lurking behind the headlines of gangsta glamour, gold-drenched drug dealers, and street-corner society. Focusing on two romances - Jessica's dizzying infatuation with a hugely successful young heroin dealer, Boy George; and Coco's first love with Jessica's little brother, Cesar - Random Family is the story of young people trying to outrun their destinies.

Do you find yourself constantly asking your child to "pick up the pace"? Does he or she seem to take longer than others to get stuff done - whether completing homework, responding when spoken to, or getting dressed and ready in the morning? Drs. Ellen Braaten and Brian Willoughby have worked with thousands of kids and teens who struggle with an area of cognitive functioning called "processing speed" and who are often mislabeled as lazy or unmotivated.

Sexual violence has been so prominent in recent years that the feminist term "rape culture" has finally entered the mainstream. But what, exactly, is it? And how do we change it? In Asking for It, Kate Harding answers those questions in the same blunt, no-nonsense voice that has made her a powerhouse feminist blogger. Combining in-depth research with practical knowledge, Asking for It makes the case that 21st-century America supports rapists more effectively than victims.

Every man has a deep bed of emotions. Emotions and feelings shouldn't be ignored. To get the great and healthy relationships you desire, you need to change the way that you manage your emotions. David Kundtz has created this full guide to steer you towards emotional healing. This motivational book is dedicated to teenage boys, young men, fathers, and grandfathers. Build your emotional confidence and your communication skills. The language, tools, and the exercises inside of this book are designed to help you express the deep, vibrant, and ever-present emotions that you hold inside.

One of the main topics of cultural conversation during the last decade was the supposed "fertility crisis" and whether modern women could figure out a way to have it all - a successful, demanding career and the required 2.3 children - before their biological clocks stopped ticking. Now, however, conversation has turned to whether it's necessary to have it all (see Anne-Marie Slaughter) or, perhaps more controversial, whether children are really a requirement for a fulfilling life.

Foregoing motherhood has traditionally marked a woman as “other.” With no official place setting for her in our society, she has hovered on the sidelines: the quirky girl, the neurotic career obsessive, the “eccentric” aunt. Instead of continuing to paint women without kids as sad, self-obsessed, or somehow dysfunctional, what if we saw them as boldly forging a first-in-a-civilization vision for a fully autonomous womankind? Or as journalist and thought leader Ruby Warrington asks, What if being a woman without kids were in fact its own kind of legacy?

What are little boys made of? It used to be frogs, snails, and puppy dog tails, but today it is MTV, ADD, and STDs. So how do parents raise their sons to be respectful and responsible young men in a toxic culture that relentlessly undermines masculine virtues such as moral strength, self-restraint, and respect for women? By letting boys be boys.

Happily Ever Older takes listeners inside nursing and retirement homes and shows novel approaches to community living. Investigative journalist Moira Welsh provides a blueprint for change and proof for industry leaders and governments that good care for seniors is attainable and necessary.

A close friendship is one of the most influential and important relationships a human life can contain. Anyone will tell you that! But for all the rosy sentiments surrounding friendship, most people don’t talk much about what it really takes to stay close for the long haul. Now two friends, Aminatou Sow and Ann Friedman, tell the story of their equally messy and life-affirming big friendship in this honest and hilarious book that chronicles their first decade in one another’s lives.

In Burn It Down, veteran reporter Maureen Ryan does just that. She draws on decades of experience to connect the dots and illuminate the deeper forces sustaining Hollywood’s corrosive culture. Fresh reporting sheds light on problematic situations at companies like Lucasfilm and shows like Lost, Saturday Night Live, The Goldbergs, Sleepy Hollow, Curb Your Enthusiasm and more.

We spend vast amounts of time acquiring confidence in narrow technical fields: quadratic equations or bioengineering; economics or pole vaulting. But we overlook the primordial need to acquire a more free-ranging variety of confidence - one that can serve us across a range of tasks: speaking to strangers at parties, asking someone to marry us, suggesting a fellow passenger turn down their music, changing the world. This is a guidebook to confidence, why we lack it and how we can acquire more of it in our lives.

Since 2014, international monetary agencies have been issuing warnings to a small group of finance ministers, banks, and private equity funds: The US government's cowardly choices not to prosecute J.P. Morgan and its ilk and to bloat the economy with a $4 trillion injection of easy credit are driving us headlong toward a cliff. As Rickards shows in this frightening, meticulously researched book, governments around the world have no compunction about conspiring against their citizens.

Overwhelmed. Do you wake up in the morning already feeling behind? Does the pressure of keeping it all together make you feel anxious and irritable? Tanya Dalton, CEO and productivity expert, offers you a liberating shift in perspective: Feeling overwhelmed isn't the result of having too much to do - it's from not knowing where to start. Doing less might seem counterintuitive, but doing less is more productive, because you’re concentrating on the work you actually want to be doing.