"An entertaining discussion" of the role memory plays in our lives as we age, including an interview with Oliver Sacks ( Times Higher Education Supplement).When we can't call to mind the name of someone we've known for years, or walk into a room and forget what we came for, we start worrying. Are these lapses just "senior moments," or something serious like dementia? In this book, a renowned specialist explores the topic of memory in later life—not only th...

Entertaining and educational, Douwe Draaisma's Why Life Speeds Up As You Get Older raises almost as many questions as it answers. Draaisma applies a blend of scholarship, poetic sensibility and keen observation in exploring the nature of autobiographical memory, covering subjects such as déjà-vu, near death experiences and the effect of severe trauma on memory recall, as well as human perceptions of time at different stages in life. A highly accessible and personal read, this book will not...

In The Man Who Lost His Head, Douwe Draaisma explores some of the most bizarre and intriguing brain disorders throughout history. From patients who believe their loved ones have been replaced by doubles or who feel sensations in an arm that was amputated years ago to those who insist they’re dead or have had their heads removed and substituted with another, these cases reveal the mind’s complex way of imposing order amid chaos. Draaisma examines syndromes like Cotard’s and Capgras...

Sergei Korsakoff, Alois Alzheimer, James Parkinson, Hans Asperger and other eminent scientists, are all names which have become synonymous with a disease, a syndrome, or an autistic disorder. Although the names of these psychiatrists and neurologists are familiar, we often know little about the individuals themselves and the circumstances surrounding their discoveries. What exactly did they discover, and who were their patients? Douwe Draaisma expertly reconstructs the lives of these and e...

SHORTLISTED FOR THE MAAH STONE BOOK AWARDA new history of US education through the nineteenth century that rigorously accounts for Black, Native, and white experiences; a story that exposes the idea of American education as “the great equalizer” to not only be a lie, but also a myth that reproduces past harms.Education is the epicenter of every community in the United States. Indeed, few institutions are as pivotal in shaping our lives and ...

An Oliver Sacks Foundation Best Book of the Year Selection, Finalist for the Books for a Better Life "Best First Book" Award, and a People Magazine Pick in nonfiction.The astounding story of a critically ill musician who is saved by music and returns to the same hospital to help heal othersAndrew Schulman, a fifty-seven-year-old professional guitarist, had a close brush with death on the night of July 16, 2009. Against the odds—and with the h...

"An essential, inspiring guide to the challenges of our time" from the author of the UK bestseller The Pig That Wants to Be Eaten (Sarah Bakewell, New York Times– bestselling author).By now, it should be clear: in the face of disinformation and disaster, we cannot hot take, life hack, or meme our way to a better future. But how should we respond instead? In How to Think Lik...

A landmark collection of Pulitzer Prize winner Elizabeth Kolbert's most important pieces about climate change and the natural worldA NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR"To be a well-informed citizen of Planet Earth," Rolling Stone has advised, "you need to read Elizabeth Kolbert." From her National Magazine Award-winning series The Climate of Man to her Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Sixth Extinction, Kolbe...

The second volume in a prize-worthy two-book series based on years of irreplicable personal interviews with survivors about each of the atomic bomb drops, first in Hiroshima and then Nagasaki, that hastened the end of the Pacific War.On August 6, 1945, the United States unleashed a weapon unlike anything the world had ever seen. Then, just three days later, when Japan showed no sign of surrender, the United States took aim at Nagasaki.Rendered in harrowing ...

Short stories from the Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Award-winning author. "One of the best science fiction collections I've ever read." — The Magazine of Fantasy and Science FictionThough written in the last decades of the twentieth-century, these tales are timeless and prophetic visions created by Michael Swanwick's wide-ranging imagination. Through stories of talking alien beasts, eco-fiction, and post-apocalyptic survival, this colle...

The Pulitzer Prize–winning writer and author of Charlotte's Web documents his move from Manhattan to a saltwater farm in New England: "Superb reading." — The New YorkerCalled "a mid-20th–century Thoreau" by Notre Dame Magazine, E. B. White's desire to live a simple life caused him to sell half his worldly goods, give up his job writing the New Yorker's "Notes and Comment" editorial page, and move with his family to a saltwater far...

A group of telepaths navigate the challenges of their power in four linked stories from the #1 New York Times–bestselling author of the Star Wars Thrawn trilogy.Dale Ravenhall is part of a small network of telepaths spread throughout North America. Although they can communicate with each other across hundreds of miles, if they get within twenty miles of each other, the mental pressure is fatal. Their situation requires them to be a cautiously tight...