The wisdom of famous philosophers distilled into practical takeaways for readers who seek to confront reality and carve out a livable space within it.For centuries, philosophers have considered the "big questions" of human life, mulling over everything from ethics to the definition of reality. Their ideas and insights are powerful and innovative, but often inaccessible and far too academic for most readers. In The Philosophy Cure: Lessons on Living from the...

The wisdom of famous philosophers distilled into practical takeaways for modern listeners.For centuries, philosophers have considered the “big questions” of human life, mulling over everything from ethics to the definition of reality. Their ideas and insights are powerful and innovative, but often inaccessible and far too academic for most listeners.In The Philosophy Cure: Lessons on Living from the Great Philosophers, scholar and expert on Cartesi...

What do Bach's compositions, Rubik's Cube, the way we choose our mates, and the physics of subatomic particles have in common? All are governed by the laws of symmetry, which elegantly unify scientific and artistic principles. Yet the mathematical language of symmetry—known as group theory—did not emerge from the study of symmetry at all, but from an equation that couldn't be solved.For thousands of years mathematicians solved progressively more difficult algebraic equations, until...

A gripping memoir written by a 96-year-old Jewish Holocaust survivor about his escape from Nazi-occupied Poland in the 1930's and his adventures with the French Resistance during World War IIIn 1937, as the Nazi Party tightened its grip on the city of Danzig (now Gdansk, Poland), Justus Rosenberg’s parents made the wrenching decision to send their son to Paris, where he would have the hope of finishing high school and going on to university in safety. He was sixtee...

Today's computers are composing music that sounds "more Bach than Bach," turning photographs into paintings in the style of Van Gogh's Starry Night, and even writing screenplays. But are computers truly creative—or are they merely tools to be used by musicians, artists, and writers?Miller, an authority on creativity, identifies the key factors essential to the creative process, from "the need for introspection" to "the ability to discover the key problem." He talks to peop...

We all make mistakes. Nobody’s perfect. Not even some of the greatest geniuses in history, as Mario Livio tells us in this marvelous story of scientific error and breakthrough.Charles Darwin, William Thomson (Lord Kelvin), Linus Pauling, Fred Hoyle, and Albert Einstein were all brilliant scientists. Each made groundbreaking contributions to his field - but each also stumbled badly. Darwin’s theory of natural selection shouldn’t have worked, according to the prevailing beliefs of hi...

Explore the fascinating myths of Greek and Roman civilizations!The tales of gods and heroes are often turned into tedious discourse that even Ovid would reject. This easy-to-read guide cuts out the boring details, and instead, provides you with a thrilling lesson in classic mythology.From the heights of Mt. Olympus to the depths of the Underworld, this book takes you on an unforgettable journey through all the major myths born in ancient Greece and Rome, su...

In Artificial Unintelligence, Meredith Broussard argues that our collective enthusiasm for applying computer technology to every aspect of life has resulted in a tremendous amount of poorly designed systems. We are so eager to do everything digitally—hiring, driving, paying bills, even choosing romantic partners—that we have stopped demanding that our technology actually work. Broussard, a software developer and journalist, reminds us that there are fundamental limits to what we c...

What is a country? While certain basic tenets—such as the clear demarcation of a country's borders, and the acknowledgment of its sovereignty by other countries and by international governing bodies like the United Nations—seem applicable, journalist Joshua Keating's book explores exceptions to these rules, including "breakaway," "semi-autonomous," or "self-proclaimed" countries such as Abkhazia, Kurdistan, Somaliland, a Mohawk reservation straddling the U.S.-Canada border, and an island n...

An unexpectedly uplifting account of women’s suffering and resilience in Stalin’s forced labor camps, diligently transcribed in the kitchens and living rooms of nine survivors.The pain inflicted by the gulags has cast a long shadow over Soviet-era history. Zgustova’s collection of interviews with former female prisoners not only chronicles the hardships of the camps, but also serves as testament to the power of beauty in the face of adversity.Where one would expect to find ...

A groundbreaking popular psychology book that explores the deep connection between our body and our brain.Over decades of study, University of Virginia psychologist Dennis Proffitt has shown that we are each living our own personal version of Gulliver’s Travels, where the size and shape of the things we see are scaled to the size of our bodies, and our ability to interact with them. Stairs look less steep as dieters lose weight, baseballs grow bigger the b...

Fourteen centuries ago, Irish saints brought the Word of God to the Hebrides and Scotland's Atlantic shore. These "white martyrs" sought solitude, remoteness, even harshness, in places apart from the world where they could fast, pray, and move closer to an understanding of God: places where they could see angels. Columba, who founded the famous monastery at Iona, was the most well-known of these courageous men who rowed their curraghs towards danger and uncertainty in a pagan land, but the...