Personal Science

Messy: The Power of Disorder to Transform Our Lives celebrates the benefits that messiness has in our lives: why it’s important, why we resist it, and why we should embrace it instead. Using research from neuroscience, psychology, social science, as well as captivating examples of real people doing extraordinary things, Tim Harford explains that the human qualities we value – creativity, responsiveness, resilience – are integral to the disorder, confusion, and disarray that produce them.

In Radical Honesty, Dr. Blanton coaches us on how to have lives that work, how to have relationships that are alive and passionate, and how to create intimacy where none exists. As we have been taught by the philosophical and spiritual sources of our culture for thousands of years, from Plato to Nietzsche, from the Bible to Emerson, the truth shall set you free.

Before cell phones that fit in the palm of your hand and slim laptops that fit snugly into briefcases, computers were like strange, alien vending machines. They had cryptic switches, punch cards, and pages of encoded output. But in 1975, a young engineering wizard named Steve Wozniak had an idea: What if you combined computer circuitry with a regular typewriter keyboard and a video screen?

Sending a teenager to a flagship state university for four years of on-campus living costs more than $100,000 in many parts of the United States. Meanwhile, many families of freshmen attending selective private colleges will spend triple - over $300,000. With the same passion, smarts, and humor that infuse his hugely popular personal finance column, Ron Lieber offers a much-needed roadmap to help families navigate this difficult and often confusing journey.

De Brevitate Vitae (frequently referred to as On the Shortness of Life in English) is a moral essay written by Seneca the Younger, a Roman Stoic philosopher, to his father-in-law Paulinus. The philosopher brings up many Stoic principles on the nature of time, namely that men waste much of it in meaningless pursuits. According to the essay, nature gives man enough time to do what is really important and the individual must allot it properly.

Timothy R. Levine’s Duped: Truth-Default Theory and the Social Science of Lying and Deception recounts a decades-long program of empirical research that culminates in a new theory of deception-truth-default theory. This theory holds that the content of incoming communication is typically and uncritically accepted as true, and most of the time, this is good. Truth-default allows humans to function socially.

Quietly and steadily, the number of women making six figures or more is increasing and continues to rise at a rate faster than for men. From entrepreneurs to corporate executives, from white-collar professionals to freelancers and part-timers, women are forging careers with considerable financial success. In Secrets of Six-Figure Women, Barbara Stanny, journalist, motivational speaker, and financial educator, identifies the seven key strategies of female high earners.

Losing our parents when we ourselves are adults is the natural order of things, a rite of passage into true adulthood. But whether we lose them suddenly or after a prolonged illness, and whether we were close to or estranged from them, this passage proves inevitably more difficult than we thought it would be. The Orphaned Adult guides listeners through the storm of change this passage brings and anchors them with its compassionate and reassuring wisdom.

Nobody needs to be told there isn’t enough time. Whether we’re starting our own business, or trying to write a novel during our lunch break, or staring down a pile of deadlines as we’re planning a vacation, we’re obsessed with our lengthening to-do lists, overfilled inboxes, work-life balance, and ceaseless struggle against distraction. We’re deluged with advice on becoming more productive and efficient and life hacks to optimize our days.

No two children who bend the "rules" of gender do so in quite the same way. Felicia threw away her frilly dresses at age three. Sam hid his interest in dolls and "girl things" until high school - when he finally confided his desire to become Sammi. And seven-year-old Maggie, who sports a boys' basketball uniform and a long blond braid, identifies as "a boy in the front, and a girl in the back". But all gender-nonconforming children have one thing in common - they need support to thrive in a society.

Imagine discovering a secret that catapults you to the life you always wished you’d have, one that’s abundantly rich and rewarding in every facet. That solution exists. In fact, it exists today, this very moment - in your own mind! Every person walking this planet carries this key, but few know how to plumb their mind’s depths to excavate a more rewarding life for themselves. That’s where Bob Proctor comes in.

DeCarlo A. Eskridge presents Wallace D. Wattles’ The Science of Success, based on a collection of works from the best-selling author of The Science of Getting Rich. This book is a compilation of some of Wattles’ finest works: How to Get What You Want, How to Promote Yourself, The Law of Opulence, and The Science of Attracting Love.

With rapid technological innovation leading the charge, today's world is transforming itself at an extraordinary and unprecedented pace. As jobs become more multifaceted, as information streams multiply, and as myriad devices place increasing demands on our attention, we are confronted every day with a plethora of new challenges. Fortunately, as Leonard Mlodinow shows, the human brain is uniquely engineered to adapt.

The story we usually tell about childhood and success is the one about intelligence: success comes to those who score highest on tests, from preschool admissions to SATs. But in How Children Succeed, Paul Tough argues that the qualities that matter most have more to do with character: skills like perseverance, curiosity, conscientiousness, optimism, and self-control. How Children Succeed introduces us to a new generation of researchers and educators who, for the first time, are using the tools of science to peel back the mysteries of character.

How do children thrive? As a parent, you probably think about this all the time. You want your children to have happy, healthy, and meaningful lives - but what's the best way to support them? In How Children Thrive, developmental pediatrician and parent Dr. Mark Bertin provides a positive, simple, and empowering approach for raising children of all ages. Bringing together mindfulness, new science on brain development, and the messy reality of being a parent, Dr. Bertin has a created a breakthrough guide that will help children - and their parents - flourish.

Understanding someone who belongs to another species can be transformative. No one knows this better than author, naturalist, and adventurer Sy Montgomery. To research her books, Sy has traveled the world and encountered some of the planet's rarest and most beautiful animals. From tarantulas to tigers, Sy's life continually intersects with and is informed by the creatures she meets. This restorative memoir reflects on the personalities and quirks of 13 animals - Sy's friends - and the truths revealed by their grace.

Men have been the dominant sex since - well, the dawn of mankind. And yet, as journalist Hanna Rosin discovered, that long-held truth is no longer true. At this unprecedented moment, women are no longer merely gaining on men; they have pulled decisively ahead by almost every measure. Already "the end of men" - the phrase Rosin coined - has entered the lexicon as indelibly as Simone de Beauvoir’s "second sex", Betty Friedan’s "feminine mystique", Susan Faludi’s "backlash", and Naomi Wolf’s "beauty myth" have.

Christopher Reeve has mastered the art of turning the impossible into the inevitable. In Nothing Is Impossible, Reeve shows that we are all capable of overcoming seemingly insurmountable hardships. Published on the eve of both his fiftieth birthday and the seventh anniversary of his spinal cord injury, Nothing Is Impossible reminds us that life is not to be taken for granted but to be lived fully with zeal, curiosity, and gratitude.

In this audiobook inspired by her popular TED Talk, the founder and CEO of Girls Who Code urges women to embrace imperfection and live a bolder, more authentic life. By choosing bravery over perfection, we can find the power to claim our voice, to leave behind what makes us unhappy, and to go for the things we genuinely, passionately want. In Brave, Not Perfect, Saujani shares powerful insights and practices to help us let go of our need for perfection and make bravery a lifelong habit.

"A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere," wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson in Love and Friendship, a collection of essays on relationships. "Before him, I may think aloud. I do then with my friends as I do with my books. I would have them where I can find them, but I seldom use them."