The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes - and Why

Far from the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity

Andrew Solomon · 721 pages

Solomon’s startling proposition in *Far from the Tree* is that being exceptional is at the core of the human condition—that difference is what unites us. He writes about families coping with deafness, dwarfism, Down's syndrome, autism, schizophrenia, or multiple severe disabilities; with children who are prodigies, who are conceived in rape, who become criminals, and who are transgender. While eac

The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference

Malcolm Gladwell · 288 pages

"New Yorker writer Malcolm Gladwell looks at why major changes in our society so often happen suddenly and unexpectedly. Ideas, behavior, messages, and products, he argues, often spread like outbreaks of infectious disease. Just as a single sick person can start an epidemic of the flu, so too can a few fare-beaters and graffiti artists fuel a subway crime wave, or a satisfied customer fill the emp

The Survivors Club: The Secrets and Science that Could Save Your Life (Audiobook)

Ben Sherwood

Which is the safest seat on an airplane? Where is the best place to have a heart attack? Why does religious observance add years to your life? How can birthdays be hazardous to your health? THE SURVIVORS CLUB Each second of the day, someone in America faces a crisis, whether it's a car accident, violent crime, serious illness, or financial trouble. Given the inevitability of adversity, we all won

Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything

Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner · 320 pages

*A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything* Which is more dangerous, a gun or a swimming pool? What do schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have in common? Why do drug dealers still live with their moms? How much do parents really matter? How did the legalization of abortion affect the rate of violent crime? These may not sound like typical questions for an economist to ask. But

Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise

K. Anders Ericsson · 307 pages

Draws on the examples of chess champions, violin virtuosos, star athletes, and memory mavens to outline a powerful approach to learning that enables proficiency through strategic goal setting, self-motivation, and feedback exercises.

Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do

Tom Vanderbilt · 409 pages

A New York Times Notable BookOne of the Best Books of the YearThe Washington Post - The Cleveland Plain-Dealer - Rocky Mountain NewsIn this brilliant, lively, and eye-opening investigation, Tom Vanderbilt examines the perceptual limits and cognitive underpinnings that make us worse drivers than we think we are. He demonstrates why plans to protect pedestrians from cars often lead to more acciden

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

Susan Cain · 360 pages

Passionately argued, impressively researched, and filled with indelible stories of real people, Quiet shows how dramatically we undervalue introverts, and how much we lose in doing so. Taking the reader on a journey from Dale Carnegie's birthplace to Harvard Business School, from a Tony Robbins seminar to an evangelical megachurch, Susan Cain charts the rise of the Extrovert Ideal in the twentieth

The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom

Jonathan Haidt · 297 pages

Applies the latest findings in psychology and brain research to the wisdom of the ancients to define what makes people happy and how you can find more happiness in your life. Confirms and builds on the happiness formula defined by other psychologists: H=S+C+V or Happiness = your biological Setpoint + the Conditions of your life + the Voluntary activities you do

Surviving Survival: The Art and Science of Resilience

Laurence Gonzales · 272 pages

The Talent Code: Unlocking the Secret of Skill in Sports, Art, Music, Math, and Just About Everything Else

Daniel Coyle · 246 pages

What is the secret of talent? How do we unlock it? In this groundbreaking work, journalist and New York Times bestselling author Daniel Coyle provides parents, teachers, coaches, businesspeople--and everyone else--with tools they can use to maximize potential in themselves and others.Whether you're coaching soccer or teaching a child to play the piano, writing a novel or trying to improve your gol

Born to Be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life

Dacher Keltner · 352 pages

A new examination of the surprising origins of human goodness.

The Invisible Gorilla: And Other Ways Our Intuitions Deceive Us

Christopher Chabris, Daniel Simons · 306 pages

Gut Feelings: The Intelligence of the Unconscious

Gerd Gigerenzer · 288 pages

The Self Illusion: How the Social Brain Creates Identity

Bruce M. Hood · 334 pages

Superstitious habits are common. Do you ever cross your fingers, knock on wood, avoid walking under ladders, or step around black cats? Sentimental value often supersedes material worth. If someone offered to replace your childhood teddy bear or wedding ring with a brand new, exact replica, would you do it?

Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning

Peter C. Brown, Henry L. Roediger III, Mark A. McDaniel · 336 pages

To most of us, learning something "the hard way" implies wasted time and effort. Good teaching, we believe, should be creatively tailored to the different learning styles of students and should use strategies that make learning easier. Make It Stick turns fashionable ideas like these on their head. Drawing on recent discoveries in cognitive psychology and other disciplines, the authors offer concr

Stumbling on Happiness

Daniel Todd Gilbert · 310 pages

A smart and funny book by a prominent Harvard psychologist, which uses groundbreaking research and (often hilarious) anecdotes to show us why we're so lousy at predicting what will make us happy -- and what we can do about it.Most of us spend our lives steering ourselves toward the best of all possible futures, only to find that tomorrow rarely turns out as we had expected. Why? As Harvard psychol

Why We Make Mistakes: How We Look Without Seeing, Forget Things in Seconds, and Are All Pretty Sure We Are Way Above Average

Joseph T. Hallinan · 269 pages

We forget our passwords. We pay too much to go to the gym. We think we'd be happier if we lived in California (we wouldn't), and we think we should stick with our first answer on tests (we shouldn't). Why do we make mistakes? And could we do a little better?We human beings have design flaws. Our eyes play tricks on us, our stories change in the retelling, and most of us are fairly sure we're way a

The Memory Illusion: Remembering, Forgetting, and the Science of False Memory

Julia Shaw · 296 pages

Think you have a good memory? Think again. Memories are our most cherished possessions. We rely on them every day of our lives. They make us who we are. And yet the truth is they are far from being the accurate record of the past we like to think they are. True, we can all admit to having suffered occasional memory lapses, such as entering a room and immediately forgetting why, or suddenly being u

50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology: Shattering Widespread Misconceptions about Human Behavior

Scott O. Lilienfeld, Steven Jay Lynn, John Ruscio, Barry L. Beyerstein · 352 pages

50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology uses popular myths as a vehicle for helping students and laypersons to distinguish science from pseudoscience. Uses common myths as a vehicle for exploring how to distinguish factual from fictional claims in popular psychology Explores topics that readers will relate to, but often misunderstand, such as "opposites attract," "people use only 10% of their br

The Knowledge Illusion: Why We Never Think Alone

Steven Sloman, Philip Fernbach · 296 pages

"Two cognitive scientists explain how the human brain relies on the communal nature of intelligence and knowledge, constantly gathering information and expertise stored outside our mind and bodies, to overcome its shortcomings of being error prone, irrational and often ignorant,"--NoveList.

The Seven Sins of Memory: How the Mind Forgets and Remembers

Daniel L. Schacter · 279 pages

"Daniel L. Schacter, chairman of Harvard University's Psychology Department and a leading expert on memory, has developed the first framework that describes the basic memory miscues we all encounter. Just like the seven deadly sins, the seven memory sins appear routinely in everyday life. Schacter explains how transience reflects a weakening of memory over time, how absent-mindedness occurs when f

Scream: Chilling Adventures in the Science of Fear

Margee Kerr · 281 pages

"For as long as we've gathered by campfires to tell ghost stories, humans have always loved a good scare. From the splatter flicks of the 70s, to Japan's obsession with drowned girls, to creepy modern experiences like the overnight ghost hunt at the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum, the horror industry has thrived across time and cultures. Our obsession with getting scared is obvious to anyone who v

Emotions Revealed: Recognizing Faces and Feelings to Improve Communication and Emotional Life

Paul Ekman · 289 pages

Nine Lives: Death and Life in New Orleans

Dan Baum · 311 pages

The hidden history of a haunted and beloved city told through the intersecting lives of nine remarkable characters After Hurricane Katrina, Dan Baum moved to New Orleans to write about the city's response to the disaster for The New Yorker. He quickly realized that Katrina was not the most interesting thing about New Orleans, not by a long shot. The most interesting question, which struck him as h