Psychological Science

The first novel Nabokov wrote while living in America, and the most overtly political novel he ever wrote, Bend Sinister is a modern classic. While it is filled with veiled puns and characteristically delightful wordplay, it is, first and foremost, a haunting and compelling narrative about a civilized man caught in the tyranny of a police state. Professor Adam Krug, the country's foremost philosopher, offers the only hope of resistance to Paduk, dictator and leader of the Party of the Average Man.

When a repairman accidentally discovers a parallel universe, everyone sees it as an opportunity, whether as a way to ease Earth’s overcrowding, set up a personal kingdom, or hide an inconvenient mistress. But when a civilization is found already living there, the people on this side of the crack are sent scrambling to discover their motives. Will these parallel humans come in peace? Or are they just as corrupt and ill-intentioned as the people of this world?

Meet Westlake Soul, a 23-year-old former surfing champion. A loving son and brother. But if you think he’s just a regular dude, think again; Westlake is in a permanent vegetative state. He can’t move, has no response to stimuli, and can only communicate with Hub, the faithful family dog. And like all superheroes, Westlake has an archenemy: Dr. Quietusa, nightmarish embodiment of Death itself. Westlake dreams of a normal life of surfing and loving again. But time is running out; Dr. Quietus is getting closer, and stronger....

Adam Brandt is used to dealing with all kinds of people - as a consulting psychologist with the Chicago Police Department he has faced his share of criminals. But Kassie Wojcek is like no one else he's encountered - 15 years old and burdened, she says, with a terrible gift: she knows how and when you will die. After claiming to 'feel' the horrific murder of the first victim, Kassie is caught up in the hunt for a sadistic serial killer terrorising Chicago, frightened that people will die without her help.

In the near future, a terrifying new form of dementia is affecting victims of all ages. Dr. Gillian Ryan is on the cutting edge of research and desperately determined to find a cure. She’s already lost her husband to the disease, and now her young daughter is slowly succumbing as well. After losing her funding, she is given the unique opportunity to expand her research. She will travel with a NASA team to a space station where the crew has been stricken with symptoms of a similar inexplicable psychosis—memory loss, trances, and violent, uncontrollable impulses.

When Susannah Breslin is a toddler, her parents enroll her in an exclusive laboratory preschool at the University of California, Berkeley, where she becomes one of 128 children who are research subjects in an unprecedented 30-year psychological experiment that predicts who she and her cohort will grow up to be. Decades later, trapped in an abusive marriage to a man with a violent history and battling breast cancer, she starts to wonder how growing up under a microscope shaped the person she became and her life choices. Is she the narrator of the story of her life, or is something else?

Jane Charlotte has been arrested for murder. She tells police that she is a member of a secret organization devoted to fighting evil; her division is called the Department for the Final Disposition of Irredeemable Persons - "Bad Monkeys" for short. This confession earns Jane a trip to the jail’s psychiatric wing, where a doctor attempts to determine whether she is lying, crazy, or playing a different game altogether.

Why do superheroes choose to be superheroes? Where does Spider-Man's altruism come from, and what does it mean? Why is there so much prejudice against the X-Men, and how could they have responded to it, other than the way they did? Why are super-villains so aggressive? The Psychology of Superheroes answers these questions in a wide range of essays on topics from Aquaman to Arkham Asylum - exploring the inner workings our heroes usually only share with their therapists.

SI LE PARADIS EST UNE ÎLE, L’ENFER AUSSI. Le sable très blanc, l’océan turquoise. Voici ce que découvre Yohan à son réveil. Un endroit paradisiaque où il va entamer une nouvelle vie. Avoir une deuxième chance d’être heureux. Pour arriver sur cette île inconnue, il a signé avec une mystérieuse société qui promettait de le faire disparaître et d’effacer toute trace de son passé.

Synthetic woman Julia Walden was designed for one reason: to compete on The Proposal and claim the heart of bachelor Josh LaSala. Her casting is controversial, but Julia seems to get her fairy-tale ending when Josh gets down on one knee.

In a Mexican temple, archaeologists uncover the remains of a half-human hybrid. They believe it is related to the creature in Antarctica, a dark thing of legend that is still alive-and still evolving. They believe it needs a new host to feed, to mutate, to multiply. They're right. And they're next. And the human race might just be headed for extinction.

Nick Seagrave is a disillusioned business executive who has lost loved ones to tragedy and his family to neglect. Now, at a point of great crisis, he finds himself inexplicably transported to what appears to be another world. Suddenly he's confronted with profoundly clear views of his own past and personality. And he's enabled to see, hear, taste, and smell the realities of both heaven and hell - realities that force him to face dangers and trials far greater than any he's known before.

Menopause hit Darcey Steinke hard. First came hot flashes. Then insomnia. Then depression. As she struggled to understand what was happening to her, she slammed up against a culture of silence and sexism. Some books promoted hormone replacement therapy. Others encouraged accepting the coming crone. Beyond that, there was little that offered a path to understanding menopause in a complex, spiritual, and intellectually engaged way.

Still recovering from the shocking revelations they uncovered deep in uncharted territory in the Grand Canyon, American myth and legend investigator Nolan Moore and his team take on a new mission, investigating a rumored case of witchcraft and possession. Nolan hopes their new case, in a quaint village in the middle of the woods, will prove much more like those he and his team investigated prior to their trip to Kincaid's cavern.

Kate Collins has been ghosted. She was supposed to be moving in with her new boyfriend, Scott, but all she finds after relocating to Brighton is an empty apartment. Scott has vanished. His possessions have all disappeared. Except for his mobile phone. Kate knows she shouldn't hack into Scott's phone. She shouldn't look at his Tinder, his calls, his social media. But she can't quite help herself. That's when the trouble starts. Strange, whispering phone calls from numbers she doesn't recognize. Scratch marks on the walls that she can't explain.

It's late Thursday night, and Inspector Ross Carver is at a crime scene in one of the city's last luxury homes. The dead man on the floor is covered by an unknown substance that's eating through his skin. Before Carver can identify it, six FBI agents burst in and remove him from the premises. He's pushed into a disinfectant trailer, forced to drink a liquid that sends him into seizures, and is shocked unconscious. When he awakens, Carver works to find out what happened to him, soon realizing he's entangled in a web of conspiracy that spans the nation.

Seven families arrive at an ancient castle, expecting a grand feast - but each guest brings the weight of their own expectations, not to mention hidden agendas and a thirst for revenge that will push them into darkness as evil approaches. Listen to it because: Experience a Warhammer Horror take on a classic set-up - people gathering for a meal, each of them carrying their own secrets. It's sure to terrify and delight you in equal measure.

One of the world's most famous intellectual ghost stories, The Turn of the Screw is a haunting tale of suspected supernatural possession. A governess at a country house claims that Miles and Flora, two orphaned children in her care, are being controlled by spirits for some evil purpose. No one else can see the ghosts, and the children themselves are silent. Are they being dominated by spectral forces, or are they hiding something? Is the governess simply paranoid, or is something else going on?

As we grapple with news stories about our country’s racial fault lines, our challenge is not just to learn about the past, but also to cope with the “belief grief” that unlearning requires. If you are on the emotional journey of reckoning with the past, such as the massacre of Black Americans in Tulsa, the killing of Native American children in compulsory “residential schools” designed to destroy their culture, and the incarceration of Japanese Americans, you are not alone.

Franz Kafka's profound and disturbing novella Metamorphosis was first published in German in 1915. In this recent translation by David Wyllie, Gregor Samsa, a travelling salesman, wakes to find himself "transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin". How he, his family, and others deal with this untoward situation is subsequently revealed.