Psychological Science

Rosie Daniels leaves her husband, Norman, after 14 years in an abusive marriage. She is determined to lose herself in a place where he won't find her. She'll worry about all the rest later. Alone in a strange city, she begins to make a new life, and good things finally start to happen. Meeting Bill is one, and getting an apartment is another. Still, it's hard for Rosie not to keep looking over her shoulder, and with good reason. Norman is a cop, with the instincts of a predator.

Quentin Coldwater is brilliant but miserable. A senior in high school, he's still secretly preoccupied with a series of fantasy novels he read as a child, set in a magical land called Fillory. Imagine his surprise when he finds himself unexpectedly admitted to a very secret, very exclusive college of magic in upstate New York, where he receives a thorough and rigorous education in the craft of modern sorcery.

Evan Sanderson seems to be living a charmed life. He is a successful doctor, much respected in the community, and has a beautiful wife. Evan accomplished what he had because he had a burning ambition to achieve, to be the best. At the end of his life, he wonders if he did enough. He has a terrible feeling he has not. Evan lives in Middle Falls, where second—and third—chances abound, so perhaps he will be able to get to where he longs to be after all. Or will his ambition turn in new directions?

Why might some sex education programs result in more teen pregnancies? Why did reading that self-help book make you feel less happy? What's the best way to recover from trauma? Can we actually improve our lives by redirecting our thinking?

A writer in California. A doctor in Boston. A motel owner and his employee in Nevada. A priest in Chicago. A robber in New York. A little girl in Las Vegas. They’re a handful of people from across the country, living through eerie variations of the same nightmare.

Henry is a brilliant engineer who, after untold hours spent in his home lab, has achieved the breakthrough of his career—he’s created an artificially intelligent consciousness. He calls the half-formed robot William. No one knows about William. Henry’s agoraphobia keeps him inside the house, and his fixation on his project keeps him up in the attic, away from everyone, including his pregnant wife, Lily.

For 30 years, a secret agency called the Southern Reach has monitored expeditions into Area X - a remote and mysterious place that's sequestered from civilization. After the twelfth expedition, the Southern Reach is in disarray, and John Rodriguez (a.k.a. "Control") is the team's newly appointed head. From a series of interrogations, a cache of hidden notes, and more than 200 hours of profoundly troubling video footage, the secrets of Area X begin to reveal themselves - and what they expose pushes Control to confront truths about both himself and the agency he's promised to serve.

Inextricably linked with the fatwa called against its author in the wake of the novel’s publication, The Satanic Verses is, beyond that, a rich showcase for Salman Rushdie’s comic sensibilities, cultural observations, and unparalleled mastery of language. The book begins with two Indians plummeting from the sky after the explosion of their airliner, and proceeds through a series of metamorphoses, dreams and revelations.

A simple DNA test is all it takes. Just a quick mouth swab, and soon, you'll be matched with your perfect partner - the one you're genetically made for. That's the promise made by Match Your DNA. A decade ago, the company announced that they had found the gene that pairs each of us with our soul mate. Since then, millions of people around the world have been matched. But the discovery has its downsides: Test results have led to the breakup of countless relationships and upended the traditional ideas of dating, romance, and love.

Heather agrees to go camping with Dougie and his friends because she's desperate to get closer to him, and a secluded beach sounds like the perfect place. But the trip takes a sinister turn that brings Heather's plans to a violent end. One by one, the group begins to vanish. A year later, Heather knows she's just lucky to be alive. And now, people are asking for answers, or else she will be the one to take the blame. But the truth about what happened on that trip is far more terrifying than anyone knows....

Meg wants a normal life. Her new artistic style, born in the depression of her mother's death, is poised to take the art world by storm, if she could just overcome the debilitating anxiety caused by the car accident that scarred her boyfriend, Austin. Encouraged by her therapist, Meg pushes outside her comfort zone to befriend Haley, a guest instructor at the university. Haley is everything Meg wants to be: charismatic, confident, and perfect, but when Austin expresses his worry that Haley is changing Meg too fast, Meg kicks him out of her life. Or at least, she tries.

Lestat speaks. Vampire-hero, enchanter, seducer of mortals - for centuries he has been a courted prince in the dark and flourishing universe of the living dead. Lestat is alone. And suddenly, all his vampire rationale - everything he has come to believe and feel safe with - is called into question. In his overwhelming need to destroy his doubts and his loneliness, Lestat embarks on the most dangerous enterprise he has undertaken in all the danger-haunted years of his long existence.

When Gyre Price lied her way into this expedition, she thought she’d be mapping mineral deposits and that her biggest problems would be cave collapses and gear malfunctions. She also thought that the fat paycheck - enough to get her off-planet and on the trail of her mother - meant she’d get a skilled surface team, monitoring her suit and environment, keeping her safe. Keeping her sane. Instead, she got Em. Em sees nothing wrong with controlling Gyre’s body with drugs or withholding critical information to “ensure the smooth operation” of her expedition.

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.

In the idyllic town of Middle Falls, Oregon, a peculiar phenomenon unfolds—those who die but are not prepared to move on open their eyes again at a pivotal juncture in their past lives, all memories of their first life intact. That includes Hattie Kildare. After dying in 2008, Hattie awakens as a teenager in 1943, back in a world gripped by the chaos of World War II. Amidst the echoes of conflict and the specter of loss, she is reunited with Jimmy, her beloved first boyfriend lost to the war in her first life.

"[ Memnoch] is one of Rice's most intriguing and sympathetic characters to date. . . . Rice ups the ante, taking Lestat where few writers have ventured: into heaven and hell itself. She carries it off in top form."( The Seattle Times)

Little Marek, the abused and delusional son of the village shepherd, believes his mother died giving birth to him. One of Marek’s few consola­tions is his enduring bond with the blind village midwife, Ina, who suckled him when he was a baby. For some people, Ina’s ability to receive trans­missions of sacred knowledge from the natural world is a godsend. For others, Ina’s home in the woods is a godless place.

It's centuries since I've seen one single other member of my own species. Oh, there have been others. I've heard of them, chased after them, and in some instances almost found them. Mark, I say almost. But not in centuries have I touched my own flesh and blood, as humans are so fond of saying. Never in all this time....

“Narcissism” is truly one of the most important words our time ― ceaselessly discussed in the media, the subject of millions of online search queries, and at the centerpiece of serious social and political debates. But what does it really mean? In The New Science of Narcissism, Dr. W Keith Campbell pulls back the curtain on this frequently misused label, presenting the most recent psychological, personality, and social research into the phenomenon.

Bradbury's Mars is a place of hope, dreams, and metaphor - of crystal pillars and fossil seas - where a fine dust settles on the great, empty cities of a silently destroyed civilization. It is here the invaders have come to despoil and commercialize, to grow and to learn - first a trickle, then a torrent, rushing from a world with no future toward a promise of tomorrow. The Earthman conquers Mars...and then is conquered by it, lulled by dangerous lies of comfort and familiarity, and enchanted by the lingering glamour of an ancient, mysterious native race.