This book uncovers the hidden rules that shape the balance between the weak and the mighty and the powerful and the dispossessed. In it the author challenges how we think about obstacles and disadvantages, offering a new interpretation of what it means to be discriminated against, or cope with a disability, or lose a parent, or attend a mediocre school, or suffer from any number of other apparent setbacks. He begins with the real story of what happened...

In the course of over twenty years of research, leading motivation and personality psychology expert Carol Dweck has discovered that our mindset is not a minor personality quirk, it actually creates our whole mental world, and explains how we become optimistic or pessimistic. Mindsets shape goals, attitudes toward work and relationships, and how we raise our kids, ultimately predicting whether or not we will fulfill our potential. Dweck has found...

Presents a practical guide to meditation that debunks the myths, misconceptions, and self-deceptions that make many people reluctant to try it, and suggests a range of meditation practices.

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 Steven D. Levitt is not a typical economist. He is a much-heralded scholar who studies the riddles of everyday life;...

We've all asked, "What is the world coming to?" But we seldom ask, "How bad was the world in the past?" In this startling new book, cognitive scientist Steven Pinker shows that the past was much worse. Evidence of a bloody history has always been around us: genocides in the Old Testament, gory mutilations in Shakespeare and Grimm, monarchs who beheaded their relatives, and American founders who dueled with their rivals. The murder rate in medieval...

"In the process of helping countless men and women reach their weight loss goals, Harper has noticed six fundamental patterns in the lifestyle choices of those who succeed long-term--from the unique way they plan ahead to how they organize their environment and social calendars to even the way they dress ... Harper draws on ... research related to habit formation, neuroplasticity, and cognitive behavioral psychology to show how feeding your brain--'the...

The worldwide bestselling phenomenon that has helped millions tap the power of the law that governs all our lives to create—intentionally and effortlessly—a joyful life.
In 2006, a groundbreaking feature-length film revealed the great mystery of the universe—The Secret—and, later that year, Rhonda Byrne followed with a book that became a worldwide bestseller.

Fragments of a Great Secret have been found...

When he buys a beach house on the Carolina coast, David Sedaris envisions long, relaxing vacations spent playing board games and lounging in the sun with those he loves most. And life at the Sea Section, as he names the vacation home, is exactly as idyllic as he imagined, except for one tiny, vexing realization: it's impossible to take a vacation from yourself. Sedaris sets his powers of observation toward middle age and mortality, that vertiginous...

Follows a young couple over one life-changing weekend during which the husband flees lower Manhattan with his newborn daughter for a weekend in the Caribbean, while his wife tries to recapture who she was before the baby.